


Gate - 2- Moderation

by sharkcar



Series: The Bad Sleep Well [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clones, Stormtrooper Culture, clone culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25664305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: An imagining of the lives of clones after the Clone Wars. Just some simple men, making their ways in the universe, in all their tragicomic glory.1- Self-Control- Vader can't remember why he can't remember2- Restraint- Rex's work and personal lives might have too much overlap3- Not to Excess- Wolffe gives in to paternal instincts
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus & CT-7567 | Rex, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex & CC-3636 | Wolffe, CT-7567 | Rex/Original Female Character(s), Darth Vader/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Bad Sleep Well [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334464
Comments: 7
Kudos: 3





	1. Self-Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get a load of this fool

Tragedy is the best time for mirth- Creed of the Askajian Moon Lady

  


79’s, Coruscant. Last year of the Clone Wars. 

  


The soldier started to cry, holding her closer.  
  
“It’s alright,” Niki ran her fingers gently across the short stubble of the hair on the back of his neck and put her cheek against the top of his head.  
  
“I’m sorry…I thought...,” he nuzzled her body to avoid looking at her. His tears dripped on her chest. He knew he was going to have to let go. His appointment was almost over.  
  
He was having a problem lately with his equipment. His platoon mates had bought him a go with her to see if it would help. They’d be expecting success.  
  
Niki did her best to be understanding, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure it’s just because you’ve been drinking a lot.”  
  
She readjusted what little clothing she wore. Just enough to cover a few strategic places. Elastic enough to be moved out of the way frequently.  
  
Stamp hadn’t stopped crying. So she let him hold her again for a few seconds.  
  
“I just can’t get it out of my head. Brother was there one moment, and then vaporized the next. I was just saying something to him, then mid sentence...Then I got back to base camp and I found a few of his bloody teeth lodged in my chinks, I started screaming...” Stamp had just come back from the front line on Felucia where he’d seen some rough things.  
  
Niki didn’t want to be rude, but he was her last appointment before she could take a break. She had to be able to deescalate affectionately and extricate herself from the situation.  
  
Then he could go back out to the table to sit talking to his brothers about nothing and repressing his feelings.  
  
“I’ll put you on my roster for when you get back next month,” she reassured him. But he knew the rules. He didn’t finish, but she’d be keeping the money.  
  
Niki wasn’t sorry. Psychiatrists didn’t work for free if you didn’t feel better after talking to them. Why should she?  
  
Most men could get violent at moments like that. When they were keyed up but unsatisfied. Hurting someone was their only solution for when things didn’t go their way. Blame someone else and let the cruel insults fly. Sometimes the fists.  
  
That was why it was important for an independent businesswoman like Niki to work in an environment that offered her protection. She didn’t prefer to work in a Hutt bar. But they owned what passed for reputable establishments that would allow people in her profession to do business. She was friends with the other girls and they could look out for each other. And most importantly, the clientele were good people. She couldn’t say that about most places she’d ever worked. She’d been kidnapped and forced into a brothel at nine, which she felt explained what kind of people she'd had contact with.  
  
Niki left the refresher and scanned the room. Wolffe was with the same group, standing around a high table instead of sitting in a booth. It annoyed her. She didn’t want to stand. Niki approached and men stepped aside to get out of her way. Wolffe automatically confiscated a high stool from a brother playing video slots nearby. When that little brother saw who it was for, he waved and smiled, then trotted off to tell everyone.  
  
Niki was thrilled to get off her feet and not be pinned up against a wall.  
  
Wolffe stood beside her, with his arm nice around her shoulders. “We were just about to play a game.” He squeezed gently and kissed her forehead.  
  
Niki looked curiously at the group. Rex had brought that General Skywalker.  
  
Skywalker was a bona fide famous person within one degree of separation of her. And yet, Niki was sure she couldn’t drop his name to network with. It’s not like he would introduce her to his famous friends, or do one thing to help her. If she even told people that she knew him, the Jedi Order would probably send her out a cease and desist.  
  
She’d seen him before, even flirted a little. But unlike most men, he seemed extremely uninterested in talking to her. Ever. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to buy what she was selling, but also that he wanted to make sure people knew it. Niki thought it was funny, he just stood there with Rex. They had adopted the same stances and affectations, quoting their in-jokes. Eyes only for each other.  
  
Cody was completely focused on Bly. Bly looked depressed. Niki knew he had reason, but he’d asked her to not bring it up. He was at least out and making an effort.  
  
Wolffe was always animated when he’d been drinking, and talkative when other people were quiet, hoping it would help people ‘pack fewer sads’. He said the younger guys got jumpy when commanding officers looked grave.  
  
Wolffe switched on his recorder.  
  
“Okay, we’ll start with a simple one. I have never paid for a prostitute,” Wolffe immediately started to chug his beverage enthusiastically. His arm was still around Niki.  
  
Cody looked tentative, but he knew Niki would call him out if he didn’t admit it, so he took a sip. Probably worried Skywalker would tell on him.  
  
Niki moved on to call out someone else.  
  
“Bly, what about that time we did it?” Niki eviscerated him.  
  
Everyone at the table stared, curious.  
  
Bly owned up, “I just wanted to see if I liked it.” He took a gulp.  
  
“So?” Wolffe asked, his arm still around Niki.  
  
“I did not,” Bly answered honestly.  
  
“Wait, why not?” General Skywalker deadpanned as if he actually didn’t know.  
  
“Um…” Bly had never tried to hide anything, he just assumed everybody knew. Now he had to be worried about being reported as a deviant. The army had reprogramming protocols for men like him. He didn’t actually know General Skywalker well enough to be sure of what he’d do.  
  
General Skywalker swatted, “I’m just kidding. I may be a Jedi, but I’m not that sheltered.” He clapped Bly on the back.  
  
Wolffe glanced at Niki. She did a lekku twitch that meant, ‘Get a load of this fool.’ Wolffe and she wordlessly decided Skywalker was going to get shocked, one way or another.  
  
“I’ve got to drink triple, ‘cause of that one time…,” Wolffe waved at the bartender droid, “Sparky, could I get two more?” He indicated the beer pitchers.  
  
“Your volume of consumption of the alcohol doesn’t have to be correlated to the number of prostitutes you’ve hired at a time,” Cody had no desire to hear that story again.  
  
Wolffe was also eager to embarrass Cody in front of a natural born person, since that bothered him so much, “Nah, I think it does.”  
  
General Skywalker directed his weighty attention at Wolffe, “Isn’t that kind of disrespectful to talk about in front of your girlfriend?”  
  
Niki was tired of being talked around, so she unleashed a verbal detonator, “What am I gonna get offended about? You know I have had sex with most of the men in this room, right? It’s my job. What do I care what he does?” He could stay the hell out of her relationship, thank you very much.  
  
General Skywalker joked in a way that he probably always got away with because he was cute, “Maybe I am a little sheltered.”  
  
Niki smiled, “I knew it.” It worked. He really was cute. She jumped back into the game, “Um…I have never had a haircut.”  
  
Cody picked up his cup, “That’s not fair, your species doesn’t even have hair.”  
  
Niki looked at her manicure, “Drink boys, I don’t make the rules.”  
  
Wolffe put in another one that he knew he had to drink for. So he could consume more, “I never ate a bug.”  
  
Cody shook his head as everyone else at the table drank, “C.C. why would you eat a bug?”  
  
Niki was ready to throw something at him, the answer was so obvious, “When you are fricking starving, you’ll eat a lot of things.” That was one thing clones hadn’t had to worry about much. As property of the state, they were always fed.  
  
Niki looked up because she thought she saw Skywalker nodding a little. As if he knew. That made Niki mad.  
  
Rex talked about something he knew General Skywalker liked, “Senator Amidala had to eat them for diplomacy. Ain’t that the other end of the spectrum.”  
  
General Skywalker shrugged, “Same difference. It’s about the stakes. If they are high enough to you to you, you’ll do anything.”  
  
Niki supposed she didn’t know the stakes in diplomacy. But she still thought he was the clueless one.  
  
Cody said something that Niki wasn’t sure how to interpret, as agreement or shade thrown at the general, “Yeah, you would, I guess.” It all came down to how much emphasis he placed on ‘you’.  
  
The droid brought over the pitchers.  
  
Wolffe made the easy jokes, “Cody would never eat bugs. They’re not Republic issue food rations. Although, those might be made of insects for all we know.”  
  
Cody kept to the Republic issue diet. It wasn’t about food, it was about proving he had the self-control.  
  
Rex and the general laughed. The joke was safe.  
  
Bly spoke up, “My turn! I have never driven a speeder.”  
  
Wolffe, Rex and Skywalker drank. Wolffe poured everyone more. Then looked at Skywalker.  
  
“Me? I have never smoked a death stick,” he came up with something simple. He was barely sipping.  
  
Wolffe, Bly and Niki drank.  
  
Rex looked at Wolffe and smiled, adopting his strategy, “I have never shot a droid.”  
  
To his obvious surprise, everyone drank.  
  
The general and Rex looked curiously at Niki.  
  
“What? Some pervert was controlling a probe droid to hover outside my bedroom window while I was changing.”  
  
Wolffe lit up, “So you were standing at the window in your underwear and you shot it? That’s so hot.” Wolffe thought it sounded like something from a music disc cover.  
  
Rex surprised himself when he admitted, “It is, actually.”  
  
Niki threw another detonator in, “I have never seen a naked Jedi.” She looked at Skywalker when she said it. He did not look back, but merely laughed and took a drink. He looked like he thought she was crazy.  
  
Rex laughed and blushed, and drank, “Yup.”  
  
Cody drank as well, nodding in agreement.  
  
Bly was suddenly very interested, “Really? General Skywalker using the communal showers after physical training?” He looked at the general.  
  
Cody pointed at him, “He’s pretty shy. It’s Kenobi, man. He just does not even care.”  
  
Bly had a crush, “Aw, really? You’re killing me.”  
  
General Skywalker looked a little scandalized that someone wanted to see his ‘father’ naked.  
  
Wolffe enjoyed that the talk of nakedness had been so beautifully awkward, “Um… I have never had a bath in a tub.”  
  
Niki drank, “Stop picturing it, you pigs.”  
  
She looked at Cody. He looked uncomfortable.  
  
Wolffe diffused the tension, “I can’t help it. New goal, we should get a bigger tub installed at home. Big enough to have sex in. Any of you boys know how to grout? General?”  
  
Wolffe always made Niki laugh.  
  
General Skywalker wasn’t sure if he should respond, “Uh…”  
  
Cody came up with what he thought would be safer, “I have never been bitten by an animal.” Everyone drank, except Niki.  
  
“Does Wolffe count as an animal,” Niki asked as he threatened her ear cone.  
  
Rex rolled his eyes a little, “Totally.”  
  
Niki took a polite sip.  
  
Bly explained, “Mine was a tooka. Pet it twice, it’s all sweet, pet it a third time, it grabs with the claws and chomp!”  
  
Cody nodded in agreement.  
  
Wolffe started listing, “I got bitten by a monkey lizard. And a puffer pig. And a guarlara. And a shaak. And a sleen. Oh, and a nerf.”  
  
Niki shook her head, “That was a long day at the petting zoo. I’m telling you Wolffe, you can’t just go around attempting to see the genitals of every life form you come across.” The two of them were now on their improv game.  
  
“Aw, but isn’t that how we met?” Wolffe hugged her.  
  
Niki made a hot and bothered face, “Behave, or you’re not getting your sex tub.”  
  
“I’ll be good,” Wolffe agreed and nuzzled her neck.  
  
Skywalker was blushing. Public displays of affection were probably weird for him, Niki decided. Jedi seemed sexually repressed.  
  
Bly had cheered up. He loved awkwardness as much as Wolffe did, “I have never been to Ryloth.”  
  
Rex, like Skywalker, had not been directly on world, “System or planet?”  
  
Bly shook his head as almost all the others drank, “Neither. Wolffe, not you?”  
  
Wolffe shook his head, “Nope. And I love Twi’leks. Stupid Republic, never sending me.”  
  
Cody got annoyed, “You go next time, let your guys get eaten by gutkurrs. That place is savage.”  
  
Bly knew Cody thought so, “Cody, that’s not polite.”  
  
Niki was triggered, “I don’t care. I agree with him. If the wildlife doesn’t get you, the slavers will. It’s a fricking mess. I wouldn’t go back there if you paid me.”  
  
General Skywalker looked slightly hurt, “Um…I’m sure it’s better now that it’s liberated from the Separatists.” He had been in on the liberating.  
  
Niki made her ‘get a load of this fool’ twitch. She decided to tell him the shocking truth, “When I lived on Ryloth, I had a restraining chip in my shoulder that meant if I tried to run from the brothel that owned me, I would be blown to pieces. I had to stay there and do whatever they said. And that was before the Separatists came to Ryloth. If you say it’s better on Ryloth now, I just don’t believe you. It’s a horrible place.”  
  
Skywalker knew about horrible places. And what happened to women who got left there. He thought of someone who never should have been left. The horrible tortures inflicted on her by her killers. Then he found he didn’t want to think of her because it hurt too much to.  
  
Wolffe came to his rescue by distracting everyone with humor, “Geez! I’m sorry I implied I’d like to go to Ryloth. I wasn’t even serious. It was a roundabout way of saying I think Twi’lek women are hot.”  
  
Niki felt a little triumphant, “Aw. Thanks sweetie.”  
  
Wolffe kissed her neck, interspersing kisses with slogans, “Screw Ryloth! Abolish slavery! Break the chains of oppression! Damn you to hell, wildlife!”  
  
Niki kissed him back and the two of them fumbled at each other, trying to be ridiculous.  
  
General Skywalker looked incredulous, “I…uh…”  
  
Rex dismissed, “Just…don’t even try to understand it.”  
  
Skywalker noticed a bit of envy from Rex, who he knew still hadn’t gotten over Lina. Rex hadn’t wanted to talk about it to relive it. Distraction was better.  
  
Anakin knew if Padme ever left him, he’d be in worse shape than Rex.  
  
Skywalker watched Wolffe’s eyes follow that woman when she went back to work. He knew she’d be there, night after night, flirting, touching, then getting pounded by his brothers one after the other. It must have been humiliating. That was really why Wolffe couldn’t consume the alcohol fast enough, Anakin assumed. In his agony, he’d lost any semblance of self-control. It was sad, really.  
  
As for that woman, Anakin banished her from his mind. She sent his thoughts to places he didn’t want to go. 

  


Seelos, Nineteen years later

  


A medical frigate landed. Doctor droids retrieved the broken suit with the man inside.  
  
The frigate brought the Lord of the Sith back to his castle on Mustafar. While he underwent healing and repairs, Vader ordered the 501st Stormtroopers to Seelos, hardly having to speak to make his wishes known.  
  
At this level of Force hypnosis, his subordinates received his wishes directly and without requiring explanation. If they ever thought about it, they were entirely unaware that they were under any control. But they hardly had their own thoughts anymore. The thoughts appeared in their minds as if spontaneously. They then followed as automatically as they would spoken orders. They never resisted, they weren’t strong enough.  
  
Vader had noticed that the Emperor did not seem to have the same level of ability at this particular skill. Anakin Skywalker had discovered it back during the war, that he had a talent to connect when leading an army. That he could command such power that he could use those under his command as a sea monster would tentacles.  
  
Palpatine had no military experience, he didn’t know how it felt to draw on the respect it inspired. The admiration. The energy then channeled into violence.  
  
Seelos  
  
The Stormtrooper with the orange shoulder patch supervised the survey. Stormtroopers paced about looking for clues. Other troops on speeder bikes swarmed the surrounding hills looking for sentients who could be questioned about what had happened. Vader was able to sense that none of the witnesses knew much of anything useful to him. Their minds carried no memories of Jedi. The people Vader fought, the clones and that woman, were strangers to them. What they’d seen they had all found inexplicable. They were more useful left there to confuse anyone who came questioning.  
  
Vader brought his focus back to the search.  
  
One troop knelt down and retrieved something from the dirt. He held it up and beckoned the captain.  
  
“Look, sir.”  
  
The captain could see what seemed to be a small glass vial from a discarded injection pen.  
  
“Inform Lord Vader, we’ve found it,” the captain nodded.  
  
The captain would assume he’d commed His Lord to tell him. But because he knew, Vader already knew.  
  
The captain made a gesture, and the troopers with the flamethrowers came out and sanitized the location. All that remained of the site was a scorched ruin and terrace walls and piles of junk left to scavengers. No one, the Emperor’s agents included, would ever know why the place was important. 

  


Mustafar, Atravis Sector, 

  


Lord Vader was standing silently on the landing platform at his castle, watching the lava flow. The 501st gunship arrived with the squad from Seelos. The captain deboarded and marched over to his commanding officer.  
  
“Lord Vader,” the captain knelt. It wasn’t military protocol. Weak minded Stormtroopers were not thought worthy to even worship at Sith feet. Their unflinching loyalty was their job and only purpose. Personal beliefs were not a part. But Vader had always commanded extreme loyalty out of his personal legion without even trying. Propinquity to him made their already weak minds bound to his desires like droids to a macro protocol and blood vessels to a heart. The captain literally couldn’t help himself but to kneel because he had fallen overcome in the presence of His Lord.  
  
The captain held up a case with the pride of a child showing their drawing, “We’ve found it, My Lord.”  
  
‘Who else knows?’ Vader wondered, without speaking.  
  
“No one, My Lord, we kept our mission under the strictest secrecy,” the captain replied verbally, thinking he’d heard the question.  
  
Vader searched the trooper's memories to verify. Not even the Emperor knew about Seelos.  
  
“Good,” Vader’s respirator hissed.  
  
The captain handed him the case that contained the injection vial.  
  
Vader turned and walked back inside. He Force pushed the captain and the ship into the lava.  
  
\--

When Vader heard of Admiral Titus’ arrest and torture of an army clone a few years before, it had not interested him. Most of those scared old men just wanted to be left alone. They didn’t pose a threat and weren’t useful to be worth much thought. They were unimportant when compared to the Jedi the clone had been helping, or the former padawan apprentice his inquisitors battled on Takobo.  
  
Vader had actually seen Ahsoka Tano on Malachor, he knew she lived, but he could sense no trace of her.  
  
Titus had epicly failed at capturing the Jedi or holding the clone in question, so he was desperate for anything to redeem himself. It would help to get Vader’s attention. Titus reported that he had scanned the clone’s wrist and an ambitious young Inquisitor had made the connection between the clone’s number, CT-7567, and Tano.  
  
When Vader heard the number, he was much more interested.  
  
The Inquisitor asked to pursue it herself, so Vader let her use it as a test to prove herself to him. Surely she could handle the apprehension of one old man. Maybe she could draw Tano out.  
  
After letting Titus monitor Seelos for months, no trace of any Jedi was ever found. Not the untrained fleas from Lothal, not Ahsoka.  
  
The first reference to 7567 to crop up on Seelos came from a female detainee of the Kwymartown police. Titus and the young Inquisitor had then attempted to collect the prisoner from Seelos and failed somehow spectacularly, accomplishing nothing more than destroying the town.  
  
The Inquisitor tried again alone to get the girl and find out what she knew of Tano. She’d come back empty handed.  
  
In the mean time, a better lead had surfaced. Surveillance footage from the Imperial records office had spotted a clone with former ISB agent Kallus on Eriadu, the home world of Rex’s old girlfriend, Lina. It seemed a likely place for him to be.  
  
Vader sent the Inquisitor to intercept them. The Inquisitor’s death made Vader sure of who he was seeking. That shot to the eye. That was classic Rex.  
  
The Inquisitor had left the detainee who’d been looking for Rex on Seelos with the two ‘old perverts’ who’d smuggled her from Kwymartown. Though Vader sensed no trace of Ahsoka there, he thought it might be a lead. Instead of Rex, he’d found two other clones. They had a woman with them, but Vader hadn’t gotten a good look at her.  
  
He was too focused on the clones and what he saw.  
  
He’d deflected that blaster bolt into that clone, Niner from Lola Sayu. A direct hit to the heart. Then Commander Cody had injected him with something. The man stood up, as if nothing had happened. Vader had thrown him against a wall. The clone’s neck had snapped. Then healed immediately. Even Cody didn’t seem to be as old as he should have been.  
  
Vader was a man who trusted his feelings.  
  
He opened the case to find a cracked glass vial. The vision setting on his mask zoomed in. There was a residue of a substance on the inside.  
  
Vader felt desires he hadn’t felt in a long time. To have organs that functioned. Limbs regrown. The flesh of his skin able to feel and touch. Life without the cybernetic prison. To be out of pain. To be out of his misery.

Rishi

  


Niki had been injured in the throat on Seelos. She’d cut a hole in it so if she was Force choked, the thing, Vader, would not be able to kill her.  
  
It was healed but somehow still didn’t feel better. Like she had a cold.  
  
Niki’s daughter Sotna had doted on her. Made her tea. Ran her baths. Covered her work so she could rest.  
  
Now, just as Niki was better, her daughter was leaving. She felt like they barely had any time together.  
  
Sotna’s mission was supposed to be for a year, not forever. But, of course, it could be forever, if Niki was being honest about how cruel the universe could be. She had never been dishonest about that.  
  
Sotna was packing. Niki was doing most of the talking, because she didn’t like the alternative, which was quiet. They were speaking in their own language, full of nuance and physical gestures, particularly personal references, and the same characteristics attached to their dialect of lekku twitches.  
  
Sotna picked up her childhood rag lovie. “Do you want me to leave Buttercup with you?” It was funny Sotna had such a cloney accent, Niki thought for the thousandth time.  
  
“You don’t want to take her?” Niki remembered more than one highly emotional incident while Sotna was growing up where ‘Buttercup’ was almost lost. Every time, Niki had been able to command a host of clones to organize a formal search party until it was recovered.  
  
Sotna had been the first child to come and live on Rishi with them, so she had been able to get away with making all manner of demands. Clones were all sentimental about children.  
  
“At least I’ll always know where she is and that she’s safe,” Sotna handed the rag to her mother.  
  
Niki wanted to say something, like that she’d take good care of her. But the words would have made her tear up and she didn’t want to.  
  
If Sotna saw her as a blubbering mess, she might not be able to leave, Niki reasoned. Niki kept herself under control and set the doll down on Sotna’s dresser, deliberately not being precious about it.  
  
Sotna was a grown up now, Niki had to learn to stand on her own two feet. Her daughter had to live her own life, it was time to let go.  
  
With all of Niki’s struggles over the years with mental health, Sotna had always taken care of her so Niki wouldn’t have to feel ashamed or humble herself to get help. Sotna had been there to bolster her confidence. To be honest with her. To pay her compliments and mean it. Sotna always knew when she just needed a hug. Niki’s daughter was her compass of reality. Most importantly, Sotna could ask Cody for help coordinating if Niki needed a little time off work to sort out some things, so Niki wouldn’t have to ask him herself.  
  
Now, her girl was leaving. Niki didn’t want to take it personally, but the feelings attached to taking it personally welled up inside her whether she wanted them or not.  
  
She felt a compulsion to ask if she’d done anything to make Sotna want to go. Niki repressed her feelings by not crying, the way she always did. Focusing on one spot like she was dizzy. Pretending the emotional wound was nothing more bothersome than a wardrobe malfunction.  
  
“Don’t trust anyone. Not even clones if you meet them,” Niki warned, “Just make us aware of any and we will deal with them,” Niki outlined Sotna’s mission protocols.  
  
“There is no way anyone can connect me back to you unless they can trace communications. So I’ll be going dark on Coruscant,” Sotna quoted Cody’s training. She was to go deep undercover with only her training to keep her safe. Surprisingly, Niki found that a comfort. Cody was the former spy. He really knew his business.  
  
Sotna was not an asset of the Democratic Queendom of Abrion that the Empire knew about. Nearly everybody in their Rishi colony had been former prisoners or property, so there was extensive documentation on each and every one of them. But Sotna had come from a slum on Ryloth. There was no record of her, outside of their own government on Rishi. Force wielders had no reason to notice her and no previous connection to her. She was perfect for espionage.  
  
Niki stroked Buttercup’s frayed edge, “You will have to check in regularly to update us about the status of your mission so that we can support you.”  
  
“Whom do I report to?” Sotna was working in intelligence. So technically, Cody was her boss as the chief of security. He commanded the DQA spy agency. But he was out on an Off-World Experience mission with some volunteers. The rest of Cody’s “Intelligence Service” had always been difficult for Niki to take seriously.  
  
“You report directly to me. I’ll be in communication with the close council, of course. But you’re my daughter, I get to talk to you if anyone gets to,” Niki stated.  
  
Niki noticed Sotna was wearing her gold tooka ring on a chain around her neck. It annoyed Niki, even though the ring was the one she had given her daughter herself. She didn’t know why her daughter had chosen to wear it THAT way.  
  
“Who else would you trust? Who loves you more than I do?” Niki asked, before she could stop herself.  
  
Sotna adopted a stance that was entirely too much like Cody for Niki’s liking. Then Sotna surprised her mother with a crushing hug, “No one.”  
  
Niki played it off as if doing a fake performance. She began to sing her daughter a song from a holo-vid, with sarcastic enthusiasm. The way she used to do her dance routines with Sotna before bed when she was little. Sotna joined in. That way they could hug and pass it off as sarcastic choreography. They finished singing the song together in harmony.  
  
Performance made Niki feel poise. Niki didn’t have to do anything more than blot her mascara a little and be happy her medication was in balance.  
  
–  
Mustafar, Atravis Sector

  


Vader had the serum replicated by the machines in his laboratory. The droids who worked there were of very low sentience. Therefore, they didn’t ask questions. Vader didn’t have to explain himself.  
  
One of the doctor droids ambled over to him and presented him with an injection pen.  
  
The robot extended a manipulator and plugged the injector pen into Vader’s upper arm.  
  
It pushed down the plunger and forced the substance into a working vein.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Not a response from the midichlorians in his cells detecting it. Or even a mild buzz. He hadn’t even felt the needle with his scarred skin.  
  
“My scans indicate that the substance broke down when it came in contact with your cells. It appears to have been engineered with a failsafe. It cannot function without a catalyst,” the droid scanned.  
  
“What would that be?” Vader asked, seemingly calmly.  
  
“An unseen stamp or marker, some type of genetic key,” it responded.  
  
–

VA hospital, Coruscant  
  
CT-0030 had lived a long life. For a clone anyway. Truthfully, he was relieved. He hurt all the time now. He was blind and incontinent. He had been practically hiding in the closet at his job cleaning up at the base commissary. He was hoping to lock the door and be forgotten about until it was time to punch out. He was caught napping and was diagnosed with fatigue. His euthanasia was scheduled for the next day.  
  
He was woken from his sleep in his hospital bed by the arrival of an IT-0 that night. The clone calmed instead of fighting. He knew it was time. The droid injected him with sedatives. An orderly, with his hat pulled low came to collect the body. The security cameras tracked him bringing the hovering stretcher to the basement. CT-0030 was listed as dead and incinerated in the hospital records. The stretcher that moved him was mysteriously missing, then was found near the carbon freezer and collected by maintenance droids.  
  
–  
  
Prison Colony, Wobani  
  
CT-7219 was alone in his cell. Prison protocols were that natural born sentients didn’t have to be subjected to clones' presences. So, since he was the only clone there, he had solitary confinement. He was just waiting to die from the lung infection he’d contracted, but they just kept feeding him and he hated to see good food go to waste.  
  
A medical officer came in one day.  
  
“The price of food go up?” he asked sarcastically.  
  
The officer injected him, then smuggled his unconscious body out with medical laundry. He was put in a cryo-freezer and sold on to a buyer.  
  
–  
  
Front lines, Lahsbane  
  
CT-2176 was called in for a routine medical check. He didn’t see how it mattered. The virulent local strain of gangrene was already taking his foot. Nothing for it. Lahsbane gangrene spread like fire in dry brush. His commanding officer had him injected with the hibernation drugs. Then he turned him over to a human smuggler. 

–  
  
Kothlis  
  
The bounty hunter, Laneet Purs, entered the room at the inn to find the bartender and the two droids shot dead. The promised bounty was nowhere to be found.  
  
“Blast,” she swore under her breath.

All over the galaxy, what scattered remnants of the population of Jango Fett clones that the Empire had registered in official databases were quietly ‘executed’. Others were recovered by opportunists off of streets or whatever places they called homes. The kidnapped men were sold on to intermediaries and human traffickers. Those brokers had offered prices that were very tempting. Enough to make anyone who knew the location of one sit up and take notice. These agents would then ask ungodly prices to the buyers who were brave enough to deal with Vader’s representative in the Atravis Sector. Carbonite ‘specimens’ were discreetly shipped to Mustafar by the dozens, under cover of castle supplies. 

Mustafar

The Fett clones woke up one by one from suspended animation, blind from hibernation sickness at first. One by one they could see each other through the blur of of fluid. They found themselves suspended in bacta tanks with breathing masks. They each had the strangest sensation that something was different. They felt better, their bodies healed. For all the good it did.  
  
Once they were fully conscious, they were wired into machines. The machines engaged in pulling them apart and injecting them to make them regrow the skin or limbs. They screamed in agony under their masks and were given nothing for the pain. They were injected with poisons, only to heal after moments of gut wrenching.  
  
The droids registered the statistics. How quickly healing occurred. How long they could keep repairing.  
  
A few were killed for good measure to see if they could be revived. That didn’t work. Dead was dead.  
  
Vader watched the experiments proceed in his laboratory, the droids moving about the room monitoring data. The men trapped in merciless machines.  
  
The Sith Lord fed off of their pain and misery. He drew strength from knowing that he could do that to them. With no more effort on his part than willing it to be.  
  
His Lord knew nothing of his scientific pursuits. Vader had always played dumb around Palpatine. It was a learned behavior from his slave days. Play dumb and ignorant and manipulators would reveal themselves with their overt pursuits to exploit. Those in power are threatened by the smart ones.  
  
Vader’s ‘study’ into the ways of the Dark Side was already yielding useful results. As far as he could conclude from experiments, the beings could live seemingly indefinitely if they had enough of a supply of the drugs, and enough nutrients. Though regrowing was limited, it had potential.  
  
The elixir was real.  
  
But how to unlock it? Try it as he might, it seemed to only work on them.  
  
Vader left the droids to their work.  
  
\--  
  
Vader didn’t try to use the same techniques to control everyone. With any mind control, some of those who had contact with Vader simply lost it. As servants, they weren’t extremely useful because they were unpredictable.  
  
Power was also attractive to offer. Even during his former life as a Jedi, Vader had always seen sycophants gravitating towards people of power as a way of raising themselves. The more obvious they were about it was directly correlate to their stupidity. Their loyalty moved like bubbles on the waves, it was untethered and always stayed at the top.  
  
Vader had no time for these people, although His Lord did find them useful as agents of destruction, since they were so easy to manipulate through lies. They had no shame.  
  
Not like Rex. Corrupting someone like him required real power.  
  
On Seelos, Vader could not proceed as planned, without Rex there. Only Rex would be loyal and strong enough to help him take down the Emperor. On Seelos, he decided to kill the clones to draw Rex out.  
  
He was about to when that woman they were with had stopped him.  
  
Her presence was bothering him.  
  
It was not so much a Force signature that was strange about her, it was more a lack. Like voids where things were missing, blocked like the way metal showed up on x-ray scanners. Or lead against radiation. Dense places. Or places so deep they were like sinkholes that led into networks of caves.  
  
He certainly felt a familiarity about this presence, but specifics were eluding him. Almost like a figure moving in his peripheral vision in a dream that disappeared when he turned. Like seeing a person out of uniform or context and you can’t remember why you know them. It surprised him because he normally had such a good memory of people.  
  
For some reason, he hadn’t paid attention.  
  
He went to his meditation chamber to rest. Once his senses were calmed, he reached out through the Force, trying to find her particular wavelength. His new apprentice.  
  
Then, like a passing wind outside a window, he caught just a hint of a sensation. Her voice in the Force was not strong, but there, and looking for him with all the tentativeness of a naked, blind person groping their way through unfamiliar woods.  
  
She brought with her a feeling. So deep and unyielding that he couldn’t help but recognize it, though he had not felt it in nearly twenty years.  
  
The feeling triggered a memory, which manifested so strongly that it caused him to experience it as a scent in his nose. He hadn’t really smelled anything in years because of the burn scars on his skin. But the memory that went with this smell was powerful enough for him to recall it exactly. It had been branded into his head because it went along with a significant experience. It had been the first time in his life that he was conscious of something. The time he’d first lived a dream.  
  
And as simple as that, the memory surfaced clear as light. He was taken back. To a moment.  
  
The smell of the orray on the executioner’s cart. Her voice whispering against the sound of the crowd.  
  
“I love you,” she had more mouthed the words than said.  
  
The apprentice could not read his thoughts. She was not powerful enough in the Force to make that connection. But feelings stirred in him. He let her know them. This presence, this new apprentice, would know.  
  
The pleasure. The guilt. The joy. The peace. The certainty.  
  
With no more than a kiss, he could banish away all those voices in his mind telling him what a disaster his life would be if he lived a lie. He’d been living lies his whole life. But for once the conflicting voices were quiet because he was so sure about his heart’s desire. Nothing else had ever been so clear to him.  
  
Though Vader did not act on it any more, he remembered how love felt.  
  
But though he let himself remember, Vader knew it was false. His love was dead. That person he had been was dead.  
  
Darth Vader then did what he always did, he used his emotional connection with someone to strengthen his anger. He remembered being with Padme. He wouldn’t be ashamed of himself. It wasn’t wrong. They weren’t wrong.  
  
He maintained the connection with his new apprentice. He tempted for her outrage. For her pity. For her anger on his behalf.  
  
Vader remembered the thoughts of the memory, to wound himself, seducing his apprentice with his sadness. The way he had Padme.  
  
Instead his memory was barraged as if it was hit with radiation static. Strange and random fantasies of fairy tale schoolgirl daydreams interspersed with lewd acts between strange pairings, like a comlink stuck between transmission channels. All of them were cheap cartoons. It was jarring. People weren’t usually able to make him lose focus.  
  
He began to search his apprentice’s thoughts for something to convince her to let her anger take over.  
  
A memory raised beneath him like an offering in a sacred vessel.  
  
A nameless girl, filthy from neglect and abuse. A man gave her food to get her to come over to him. Her starving belly left her little choice. Then he grabbed her arm and carried her off with him before she knew what was happening or could scream. Everyone saw. No one helped her.  
  
He took her somewhere alone with him. He pawed at her, he ripped at her clothing. He assured her that he couldn’t help himself. He loved her, so. She’d made him do it, going around in those skimpy little rags. Then the blood and the pain and the tears. The tiny child shrieking and screaming as if to wake the dead.  
  
Then the man put his hands on her throat and began to squeeze.  
  
Vader severed the connection. He could not see anymore. It was too terrible. The look in her eyes as she struggled for breath. It triggered a memory he couldn’t bear.  
  
He could not find his apprentice again. She still had too much caution to let him near her. Her presence had disappeared back into the figurative dark woods.  
  
He couldn’t control her by extorting pity. Or with shame. Whoever this was, she was already unashamed. She carried a glorious, merciless fury. It would take nothing to corrupt her, all she needed was strength to bear what he could teach her.  
  
She was too far away to find exactly. But he didn’t need to find her. In time she would come to him. He could foresee it. 

–

Rishi

  


Niki was in her laboratory meditating. Doing her remembering exercises.  
  
So many people in Niki’s life had tried to dictate reality to her. Talking down to her, gaslighting her, belittling her, calling her names, physically abusing her. Making her play roles in their fantasies.  
  
For her own health, regular sessions of meditation calmed her mind. To recall details. To be sure she remembered things the same.  
  
The room was thick with the smell of red Naboo begonias. She had sensed that from him last time and little more. Not what event the memory it was attached to, just the emotion, and the sensation of the scent. So she had filled the room with urns of them to help her find the connection when she wanted to.  
  
Niki sensed pain. She empathized by channeling her own experiences. The pain of her indignity. The sorrow for years stolen from her in service to cruel masters. Comisery. Then, like the dark negative outline on the inside of the eyelid after looking directly at light, she sensed the presence again.  
  
The generic temptation vibrated through the sensitive skin of her ear cone, ‘Things can be the way you want them.’  
  
She pictured herself being able to strangle people with her mind.  
  
“I like you,” she whispered. It sounded like a declaration. But grammatically speaking, there were other things one could infer.  
  
Niki had practiced her breathing to be able to keep the connection as the choking commenced. She repeated the phrase, her eyes closed. “I...like you.”  
  
She fell into a trance where she felt her hands make contact with a throat. She focused all of her might and squeezed, as hard as she could muster.  
  
A voice cried and was stifled. A higher voice than Niki expected. She opened her eyes and saw Lina’s face flash before her, before disappearing. Niki blew out the candles and performed rituals to close out the room.  
  
Sleep was elusive that night.  
  
\--  
  
She walked into the small apartment that she and Sotna shared. Sotna was checking and double checking her kit.  
  
“Did you see anything?” Sotna asked her. She found nothing odd about her mother’s meditations. Niki was always very insightful, Sotna had seen it. She didn’t need to see her mother Force throw a barrel to know her mother understood the ways of powers most people didn’t.  
  
“I told you before, he’s a manipulator,” Niki had no more to go on than her own impressions. But she was searching what he was reacting to. Looking for the patterns to construct a psychological profile. If she knew one thing, it was men. Especially the parts of them they didn’t want everyone to see.  
  
While Niki was outwardly grounded in corporeal reality, she had raised her daughter to learn the real secrets of the universe as she understood them. How she connected with them via her ritual arts and bodily discipline. They didn’t discuss it with other people for fear of being belittled. What Niki practiced and researched was an attempt to understand the esoteric. There was no proof she wasn’t making it up as she went along. She couldn’t claim any authority the way a Force wielder could, by demonstrating their power with telekenesis or other skills. She was merely learning by contact and experience. Treading the same paths until she knew them in the dark, conducting the same rituals to summon the same connections. The sensations, she believed she’d experienced, were not just drug trips, though she did imbibe plants or substances to lower her consciousness in her rituals. To her, she was certain they were actual journeys. She just didn’t want to be laughed at, so she kept the experiences personal.  
  
Sotna believed her because this was what her mother told her.  
  
A few weeks before, Niki had emerged from the lab describing the strange connection with this Vader creature. She was sure it was alive, “There’s a man in there,” she’d insisted to Cody. She was sure she’d been able to make contact, but she needed help making sense of it.  
  
This time she’d successfully banished it with a memory. About when she was a homeless child begging on the street and a man had assaulted and nearly killed her. He’d choked her until she’d blacked out, then she woke up alive. Someone had happened across them and he’d gotten scared off, probably. It had been over thirty years before, but Niki had a clearer memory of it than things she’d done that morning. Right down to the smell of her own blood.  
  
Sotna knew it shook her mother re-living these things. But Niki insisted that she had to train herself to be unafraid of them. That way, her past would have no power over her.  
  
–  
  
Queen Lina was waiting in the hangar by Sotna’s ship when she and her mommy emerged from the lifts. Lina had only her guard droid with her, it was so rare to see her so alone, without people, or a bunch of children following, she looked practically undressed. Though she wasn’t. She was wearing a dress Sotna had made her.  
  
For some reason the gesture bothered Niki.  
  
“Why didn’t you come on down, you have Cody’s code cylinder?” Sotna asked the queen. She gave her the one armed hug because her kit was on the other shoulder.  
  
That annoyed Niki. Not the hug, but the implied permission Sotna had just given her to be in their dwelling. Niki didn’t want just anybody being able to come and go. She guessed Lina was okay. But nobody had asked her first. Niki sulked behind her sun goggles. She didn’t want kids for instance to be messing around her things. She had things in there that weren’t for kids.  
  
“I wouldn’t have wanted to intrude on your bonding time. But I just wanted to thank you again. The mission you’ve volunteered for could save millions of lives,” the queen put her hand on Sotna’s shoulder, tears standing in her eyes, “I am humbled by your bravery.”  
  
Sotna was tasked with making contact with any high ranking Imperials she could, in particular those that might be able to allow her to meet Darth Vader. So she could bring him their message officially, proposing a secret alliance against the Emperor.  
  
Lina had spent as much time raising Sotna as Niki had, maternal concern would not have been out of place. But it would have hurt Niki’s feelings. So the queen fell back on formal ceremonial niceties.  
  
Sotna looked emotional. She had been indoctrinated to love her people and country for her entire life on Rishi.  
  
“I won’t fail us. We need to know what we’re up against. If I find an opportunity to shoot the Emperor myself, well, even better,” Sotna’s mission mandate was left mostly to her own discretion. She was swaggering the way Cody tended to when his wife was present.  
  
“Don’t get cocky. I want to see you make it back again,” Niki told her daughter.  
  
Sotna kissed her mother, “You’re just saying that because you still want to be the one who kills the Emperor.”  
  
“Your mother’s right, we want you back,” Lina agreed.  
  
Sotna nodded and hugged the queen.  
  
“We love you,” the queen whispered, making sure not to hold her as tightly as her mother had.  
  
Niki noticed the struggle on her face to maintain poise.  
  
Lina hadn’t seen her own daughter, Alis, since the girl was five.  
  
Somehow that made Niki cringe internally as if to react to the intrusion of a niggling little bit of grit inside an oyster.  
  
She had remembered the queen’s daughter had been spotted recently then disappeared. Who knew what kind of lunatics that girl was at the mercy of?  
  
It wasn’t until Sotna boarded and they both waved her goodbye that Niki saw the bruises on the queen’s neck.


	2. Restraint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex's mission gets complicated when Kallus gets taken along for the ride.

Ziggurat Bottom, Coruscant, First year of the Clone Wars

Rex had never been in a speeder before, so he didn’t have much to compare it to. But he suspected that General Skywalker’s piloting style was a bit fast. He had involuntary reached for a restraint to hold on to around some of the turns. Gun ships all had handles, that was practically all he’d ridden in.  
  
General Skywalker did not fly much above surface level. Republic Central Command had been at ground level, but the spaces over there had been much more wide open, with easy access to skyways. Instead, Skywalker had intentionally taken the spaces between the ground floors of buildings, navigating the course like a ball bearing on an unseen runner. It would undoubtedly have been easier to take one of the sky routes, but he seemed to like his way.  
  
Rex supposed he knew what he was doing.  
  
Rex couldn’t believe how dark it seemed down there, with everything towering over. He took a moment to appreciate being somewhere cool. He was unused to Coruscant phenomena, like the sun in the sky. It was hot being in armor under sunrays.  
  
Skywalker didn’t talk while piloting. Rex certainly didn’t initiate any conversations. The droid sat in the back seat chirping.  
  
They came to a halt and Skywalker tossed the key to his droid. Artoo put it in a compartment and then reached out his manipulator towards the front to search for broadcast music on the vehicle’s comlink.  
  
Captain Rex followed his new General down the narrow street that ran between two towering skyscrapers. Flexible pipes bound together were running overhead. Bundles of wires did the same. Laundry hung from the private residences. Skywalker’s destination seemed to be a small structure ahead.  
  
The entire ‘building’ had been constructed out of scrap. Just utilizing a space between two pyla of a skyscraper’s base. The roof seemed to be a mismatched patchwork of different colors and materials with a chimney smoking. The roof couldn’t all be welded, since some of the parts were plastic, so it was held together with water tight adhesive. Probably not the safest. The front was also scrap, but clean and painted in bright colors. Some small planters sat out front, made of old machine parts but holding growing herbs and flowers. Some mismatched furniture had been arranged among them.  
  
They entered the small front room, barely more than a counter with some cooking devices behind it and a few mismatched tables and chairs. An old holo-viewer was hung in a corner, showing images pixilated by bad reception. A metal plaque with the symbol of the Republic hung, enshrined. On the back wall there was one door. Rex presumed for storage and delivery. Probably a back door through there, he thought, like a strategist.  
  
He thought he was navigating Coruscant well for his first day, or at least, he was doing a good job of not appearing jumpy.  
  
The human female at the counter recognized the General when they walked up, “What’ll it be today, Anakin, eat in or takeaway?”  
  
“We’ll sit. Lina, this is Rex, newly arrived from Kamino,” General Skywalker thumped him on the back, halfway pushing him forward. Rex didn’t see what face the General made at her. She smiled.  
  
Rex was still in his shiny armor, not a dent or scratch yet. Brand new kama and holsters. Brand new blasters. Helmet under his arm.  
  
Lina didn’t look at any of those things that he thought were impressive.  
  
“Wow, a real clone! I was just telling you yesterday how I thought our fighting boys were handsome,” Lina was speaking to Skywalker, but as she was talking, she had started looking at Rex directly in the face. He liked her eyes.  
  
“What can I get you, soldier?” Lina asked. As if reading his thoughts, she leaned on the counter and got a closer look at him.  
  
Rex’s face flushed, unsure how to react. Practically the only humanoid female he’d ever seen was Shaak-Ti. Shaak-Ti had never had anything at all to say about him being handsome.  
  
He realized he didn’t know what types of things normal humans got from retail establishments. It was his first time in one. He’d been in a laboratory on Kamino the day before and every day of his life before that. He was suddenly panicked that he was going to embarrass himself. He couldn’t find his voice.  
  
The General put his arm around Rex’s neck casually, though they had just met. Before Rex could manage to speak for himself, the general casually pointed at things, “Get Rex one of the shaved meat sandwiches with everything, I’ll have a sandwich too, and half a rack of jerba ribs. I also want an order of fried greens and we need two of those drinks,” he pointed at some bottles in a cooling unit. Somehow, Rex felt better that he wasn’t left hanging. It wasn’t until later that Rex found out Force wielders could read his feelings. So they could help him automatically if he needed it.  
  
Skywalker even handed her the credits. Rex wondered if he should have at least offered to pay. 

\--  
  
“Lina, this is Rex’s first meal in Coruscant,” Skywalker informed her, when she brought them their food at a table outside.  
  
“What do you think?” Lina asked, looking at Rex for his own response.  
  
His mouth was still full of a bite. He swallowed. “I actually didn’t know that food could have flavor,” he complimented. The Kamino diet favored nutrition over taste.  
  
Lina patted his shoulder, “Glad you like it.”  
  
He froze when she’d touched him. It wasn’t like he could feel it through the armor. But he wondered if everyone on Coruscant was so prone to touching.  
  
“I think she likes you. You should see if she wants to go out some time,” Skywalker told him over caf after they’d eaten.  
  
Rex blushed because he knew what the general was encouraging, “Sir, we are not permitted to fraternize.” Rex sipped his cup like in table manners class. The rules were a refuge. Rex honestly knew he wasn’t ready.  
  
“I won’t tell,” Skywalker drank his in one gulp.  
  
\--  
  
Lothal, Twenty two years later.

Rex was swimming in the sea. He had asked around for diving equipment and had come up with a full diving kit and water rifle. Rex was then able to go scavenging around through the wreckage of the Imperial base. Chunks of it still lay not too far from shore. There were lots of useful things, tools especially, that Rex could just collect in his net bag. He took laser scans to make maps of where different components of the structure lay and identify what was worth pulling up.  
  
Pieces of the base were still washing ashore. They salvaged what they could. They also gathered the dead and parts of dead for burial. They proposed repurposing the scrap as a memorial somehow.  
  
The chemicals would be in the water for years. But the damage didn’t look so bad from down there.  
  
Since he was there, Rex gathered bivalves from beds that the locals informed him were deep enough that they hadn’t been contaminated by pollution.  
  
The bivalves were a cheap source of protein. It was important to get what you could on campaigns. He’d been giving his meat rations to Hera, since she needed the iron at this stage in her pregnancy. She couldn’t eat raw oysters in her condition, so he could have them. He was looking down at his work and didn’t see the giant crustacean approach out of the gloom behind him.  
  
The creature snapped at him with a claw. Rex held the claw open with his water rifle. The other claw gripped him around the chest. He spun the rifle to aim and shot the creature in the eye. It’s plate protected the appendage. The crab became enraged. It released him from its claw as it raged and vocalized. Rex swam under it and shot out at the joint of one leg. The creature scuttled away in pain, leaving the enormous claw behind.  
  
–  
  
The Ghost was landed nearby on the beach. It was a halfway decent place to set up camp while they were there. Other people camped there while they were getting the city reconstructed as well. It was a cooperative effort on the part of the Lothalis, to rebuild their broken world. The Rebels had ousted the Imperials, but that didn’t solve every problem. They had promised not to leave until the place was safe enough on its own. So the beach had become the Rebel encampment. Not a military base, like the Imperials had brought. That place had only had as much permanence as a snap on component. Like it expected to be swapped out for the next thing, whatever that was. Like it was only worth investing in until they sucked it dry and moved on to the next world. Lothal had been able to extract the virus of Imperialism, the Rebels had no desire to be imposing.  
  
Kallus and Zeb were on shore constructing a barbecue fire.  
  
Rex emerged from the water dragging the crab claw, which was almost as long as he was. He threw it next to the fire and lay down on a spread towel to catch his breath.  
  
Zeb’s eyes were open wide, “We’re gonna need more wood.” He put his arm around Kallus’ shoulders.  
  
His boyfriend looked at him, “Is that all you ever have to say to me?”  
  
Ketsu and Sabine were playing cards at the camping table with Hondo and Melch for money. The pile consisted of credits, coins, spice tins, and one of Hondo’s rings. Rex had thought to get in on the game before he remembered Wolffe took all his money when he left. He was definitely not going to blow his mission per diem that the princess had given him. His friends wouldn’t take Imperial credits in their game, anyway.  
  
\--

“What were the Jedi like?” Ketsu asked.  
  
“You knew Kanan and Ezra,” Rex shrugged.  
  
“They gave the impression they were just making it up as they went along,” Ketsu joked.  
  
Hera smiled, rather than being offended.  
  
“I mean the real Jedi,” Ketsu specified.  
  
Hondo shouted from where he was drunkenly dozing, “I knew Jedi. I knew Sith! Hell, I even knew Jar Jar Binks!”  
  
Everyone ignored him.  
  
Kallus persisted, “Rex, you fought with Skywalker. Most of these Rebellion yokels have no education in history. They don’t know. General Skywalker was the hero of the Republic. We used to hang up posters of him in school.”  
  
Rex chuckled. His brother Hardcase had had one of those. Then he sighed. It still hurt thinking of his friend, who he knew was dead.  
  
“He was a dreamer. He was tired of people telling him what he couldn’t do. So he just did it. It wasn’t to prove anyone wrong, it was to prove himself right. He just KNEW things would work, and if no one was going to help he would do it anyway. He got scared a few times. When we lost his apprentice once. When we thought Kenobi was dead. But of course everything worked out. Ahsoka said that he had powers even the Jedi Council didn’t understand.”  
  
Ahsoka had told Rex that she very decidedly was ‘No Jedi’ herself.  
  
“Like he could MAKE things work out. I mean...that kind of power in the hands of one person? It was downright unsettling sometimes. And he was so smart. The things he’d seen, he understood the problems right away, patterns and causes other people didn’t see.”  
  
“His ego must have been exhausting,” Sabine assumed. Her parents were both famous on her home world. She knew what narcissists people could be.  
  
Rex considered, “Nah. That was an act. He got bored with people telling him he was ‘impressive’. Most of it was just having the nerve.”  
  
“It’s too bad he’s dead. There is a great shortage of good leadership in the galaxy these days,” Kallus was cynical.  
  
“He would have been able to lead this Rebellion. Hell, if we’d put him in charge in the first place, there would be no Emperor,” Rex maintained. Skywalker had been a hero to the clones that knew him. And even most of those who didn’t. He spoke up for them in a time when that was not a popular thing to do.  
  
“How do you know he wouldn’t turn into a tyrant?” Sabine asked.  
  
“I think I knew my friend. He could have gotten people to agree. He just had a way of making you see things his way.”  
  
–  
  
Rex lay down on the beach for a little nap at twilight, when the beach turned cool.  
  
Like a heavy wind roaring through the sea grass, flapping the sides of the supply tents. Rex breathed deep and felt the light through his eyelids, tempting him to sneeze. He dreamed of a voice that was so warm, it was like the sun spoke to him.  
  
“Rex...”  
  
Rex didn’t respond except to listen. He allowed himself to think of his friend. He didn’t usually, because it was a painful memory. Thinking of someone it had hurt so much to lose.  
  
But he also knew that if anyone was strong enough with the Force to find a way to beat death, it would have been him. So Rex dared an irrational wish to speak with him.  
  
The wish manifested in the dream as his voice, “You got old.”  
  
The voice passed leaving pain behind in its wake like a claw scratching skin. Not the least because it was true. But mainly because he knew this dream could not be real. That wasn’t something Skywalker would say, it was what Rex himself had told Ahsoka.  
  
He would never get to say it to his other Jedi friend. Because Skywalker would never be old.  
  
Rex forced his lungs and throat to give voice to the realization of whom he was dreaming, “Anakin.”  
  
He remembered what he knew. Anakin Skywalker was dead. Obi-Wan had hacked him to pieces.  
  
Rex got so angry, he gripped the beach sand involuntarily.  
  
Suddenly, that shocked him awake, like the abrupt end of a dream where he’d been falling.  
  
Rex sat up and looked into his fist. The sensation of all the tiny coarse little grains had pained him. It had been enough to bring him back to wakefulness.  
  
Rex went to the sea and rinsed his hand in the salt water. Then he got dressed in dry clothes. The tide had gone out. Rex looked at the horizon. The planet Oon rose with the moon and followed its trajectory. He took his medication out of a belt pouch and took a dose. 

Mustafar

Darth Vader felt the connection break and he was once again conscious of his prosthetic hand and the lack of sensation it registered. But for a moment, he had really felt something. He had been close to finding Captain Rex this time for sure. If he could find him, he could use him.  
  
The vision was significant. The Force seemed to be telling him that he was correct. The key to repairing himself was the clones.  
  
Vader had been deliberately searching for Rex ever since he’d killed that Inquisitor on Eriadu.  
  
Rex could be frustrating. Anakin Skywalker had trained him to avoid Force detection.  
  
Vader had sent out his desires to his mind slaves to kill Lina if she was spotted. If Rex was with her, Vader knew her death would corrupt him. Vader could then lead Rex to direct his vengeance at Palpatine.  
  
It was something Vader could accomplish without having to do more than convey his wishes as Rex’s thoughts. If Rex could be turned to him, Vader knew he would discover its full potential. Then he would be strong enough to overthrow his master. A Darth Vader in Anakin Skywalker’s body would be unstoppable.  
  
All if he could find Rex, of course. And he could only find Rex through his connection to Anakin. Just hearing that name threw off his focus. He had to maintain that personality, that signature. Play that role. It was difficult. He had no desire to be that person anymore. 

Lothal

“Look, I’ll be back in less than a month. But Alexsandr has some medical training in Twi’lek physiology in case of dire emergency,” Rex mentioned as if he thought it was fine.  
  
“A former ISB interrogator near my cervix? No, thank you,” Hera crossed her legs, “I’d rather have a droid.”  
  
Rex blushed.  
  
“Sabine and Ketsu are here. And besides, that would be early. I’m going to carry to term,” General Syndulla reassured him, as if she could make it happen by force of will.  
  
Rex wasn’t so sure. He sensed the baby was already giving her a hard time of it over who was really in control.  
  
“I don’t intend to stay for longer than it than it takes to gather standard intel. It’s a cake walk compared to what we’re used to,” Rex was acting casual to reassure her. His stance and tone were all confidence. He realized he was doing an unconscious impression of Skywalker.  
  
He cleared his throat, “But just in case...don’t be afraid to ask for help.”  
  
He didn’t want to end up not being there when she needed him. Or worse, that she wouldn’t need him at all.  
  
“We’ll be fine,” the general hugged him.  
  
That was something. Rex wasn’t completely coated in armor these days. He could feel contact.  
  
The general still had yet to accept Alexsandr that way and he was Zeb’s boyfriend, so automatically part of the Ghost family. Rex felt a bit flattered that he’d been adopted in with such willingness. Hera hugged him the way she would Sabine, or Ezra. Not, Rex noticed, the way she had with Kanan. That only made sense.  
  
Rex swallowed hard at the realization of what he was feeling. He was going to miss his friends. He hugged her with one arm only, the other, he realized, he was carrying his nearly empty pack.  
  
–

Bothan Space

Rex and Alexsandr were on the bridge of their favorite shuttle. Kallus was wearing an Imperial uniform, as per Rex’s instructions for the plan. Rex had just never mentioned what the rest of the plan was. Alexsandr had come, no questions asked. Just like a brother would have.  
  
Rex was sitting quietly, not saying anything. He thought it was perfectly normal.  
  
Alexsandr insisted on singing the opening theme song from a holo-novela geared at Eriadan middle schoolers. Former ISB interrogator Kallus was the most creative torturer Rex had ever seen.  
  
Alexsandr touched Rex’s arm, “Don’t get excited,” he joked, in a spot on impression of Rex’s brother Wolffe.  
  
Rex didn’t want to admit how uncomfortable it made him. Not because he believed it was a sexual advance or something, but because thinking of Wolffe still made Rex sad.  
  
Feelings passed in time, he told himself. He was already in a better place about the whole Wolffe thing. He decided he must have already reached the acceptance phase of grief and that he would be able to have his recovery wrapped up before Hera had the baby.  
  
That was when he had it scheduled for himself. A goal, like training for a mission, or with an exercise program. He had decided, all it took was restraint. And he had the self discipline. He could get himself in emotional shape. It didn’t sound so unreasonable when he put it that way.  
  
“May I ask you a question, Rex?” Kallus used Rex’s name. Rex realized it had been years since he’d had someone he was on a personal name basis with who had that accent.  
  
“You can ask me anything,” Rex didn’t look at him, but stubbornly out the viewport, “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”  
  
“Before...on Eriadu...who is this woman you’re looking for?” Kallus presumed.  
  
“Does everyone owe you an explanation?” Rex flushed a little. Kallus had tried to ask him about it before. Rex was always afraid his verbal cues to stay out of it were going unheeded out of disrespect not misunderstanding. He was used to having no recourse in any case, particularly against people with that accent.  
  
“I just wanted to let you know, I’m more than willing to help you, my friend, but I can’t help if you won’t let me,” Kallus finally insisted.  
  
Rex realized he hadn’t been helping himself by trying to keep secrets.  
  
“Alright, if you want to know...” Rex started.  
  
“I do,” Kallus interrupted.  
  
“Do you?” Rex was exasperated. He sighed. Then began.  
  
“If you don’t tell me about it, I’m going to make you watch that holo-novela again,” Alexsandr threatened.  
  
Rex sighed, “At the beginning of the war, the Republic Senate passed a set of laws governing soldiers’ behavior. The Military Creation Act, sponsored by the founders of the Grand Army, Representative Jar Jar Binks and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, both of Naboo, was brought before the entire galactic senate and voted positively on by just about every sentient species represented. Though the laws were viewed as somewhat extreme by some members of the Senate, most absolved themselves by saying that manufactured beings for military purposes was a status so new it was not yet illegal.”  
  
Boring history lessons were a Kenobi trick. To obfuscate and make a person questioning you lose interest.  
  
It had worked on Skywalker every time.  
  
“And a majority of the galaxy’s citizens were in favor of it, since it was either that or be annihilated in a war that they recently found out was already upon them,” Rex prattled on, “The senators absolved themselves again by saying it was the will of the people, never mind their specific objections in principle to sentients being forced into mandatory labor. They absolved themselves a third time when they told themselves that this was just how the system worked. Their voters wanted this, so they had to make laws that would get them elected. That left us clones hanging, though.”  
  
Rex looked at Kallus and waited.  
  
Kallus cut right through it, “Different laws applied to you, I learned that in law classes at the Imperial Academy. So she was...a partner?”  
  
“Most brothers went out with people, had sex and acted normally most of the time. But the government made sure to make it difficult for us to maintain it. We can’t make children. We weren’t allowed to marry or own anything. But we did have people. She and her daughter...I feel responsible for them. Simple as that.”  
  
“Are you kidding?” Kallus interrogated.  
  
“What?” Rex asked, innocently.  
  
Kallus looked dubious, “Simple as that?”  
  
“Well I’m sorry, I don’t feel like sharing tales of inhuman cruelty wrapped in decoration that says ‘this was just how things were back then’ with some elite academy brat. It makes for awkward mental gymnastics trying to frame it in proper legal euphemism,” Rex preferred not to talk about it at all.  
  
“’Back then’? I would LOVE to introduce you to my parents on Coruscant so you could hear the things they say. The words they use about people,” Kallus was now concentrating on gazing out the viewport, “What I meant was...you seem to be going to great pains to frame this story objectively. Therefore distancing yourself from it. So, I’m forced to conclude that it bothers you.”  
  
Rex found himself resenting former ISB interrogator Agent Kallus.  
  
Kallus was able to intimidate with his sheer command of vocabulary and psychology. But then he surprised Rex.  
  
“What I mean is, I believe you, you don’t have to assume I don’t know. Please don’t hide what you mean,” Kallus reassured him.  
  
Rex scratched the back of his neck and winced a little, “We were in love. We couldn’t be together,” Rex admitted. It was an easier story to understand than he thought.  
  
“But now?” Kallus intuited.  
  
Rex realized that he’d dared to hope. He didn’t know why that made him feel ashamed of himself.  
  
“Well, alright then, Wolffe told me to wait until after Lothal, so I guess we’re there...” Alexsandr began, thinking he was helping.  
  
“Wait, Wolffe told you? What was he doing talking to you...” Rex realized he’d phrased that awkwardly, the moment he said it. Hearing Wolffe’s name made him emotional.  
  
“Should I not have?” Kallus looked offended that Rex implied he should have asked permission on who to speak to.  
  
“Do you know where he went?” Rex asked too eagerly.  
  
“No, this was way back on Seelos. I thought of a lead, but I didn’t know if you might not welcome my interest,” Alexsandr explained.  
  
Rex realized he had made no secret of his opinion that Kallus should stay the hell out of it. They had been through a lot since then.  
  
“He said he would pass along the information to you...I suppose he didn’t,” Kallus realized.  
  
“Third time he’s intercepted transmissions on me,” Rex muttered under his breath.  
  
Kallus cut to the point, “I told him that you might want to find out about the Prison Maintenance Corps. I recall the Imperial government sent most human female prisoners into that program.”  
  
Rex had heard of it. It was developed as a severe punishment to give Imperial staff a permanent supply of service women to cook their meals, clean up after them, and anything else they required.  
  
He felt pain in his chest. Guilt at feeling sorry for himself when someone he loved probably had it worse.  
  
“Wolffe said you might not want to know that,” Kallus corrected, “At least that you didn’t need any more difficulty with the fight for Lothal looming.  
  
“I know,” Rex was resigned. “I’ve always known it could be bad. I don’t have much hope left that she’s alive. It’s her daughter I was looking for. But Wolffe said he’d seen Alis, that she went to Seelos to look for me and he sent her away. I need to find her and make sure she’s safe, I can’t let her get killed because of me. What are we supposed to be doing if not helping people?” Rex decided it wasn’t selfish, but perfectly in line with the Rebels’ mission.  
  
“If you want me to, I might still know a few ways to hack into the Imperial system, I could take a look and see what records they have,” Kallus said matter of factly, “I’ll look into it, this Zerlina Tarkin Grady, child Alis?”  
  
Rex nodded his head. “This isn’t exactly a good time. I’m about to leave on this mission,” he complained.  
  
“Well, I can pursue it and tell you when you get back. When are you going to tell me the plan, anyway?” Kallus changed the subject.  
  
“Well, the people I’m trying to find seem to be looking for oppressed Imperial clones to snatch. Chances are they have a network of informants at major spaceports who report sightings. We’re going to one where there were a few disappearances in the past.”  
  
“Let me guess, I’m playing the Imperial oppressor?” Kallus extrapolated.  
  
“If they keep to form, they’re going to hijack our ship and kidnap me,” Rex informed him. “Nothing suspicious. They take me with them as a recruit, under a fake name of course. I’m there a few days, then I decide it’s not for me, I slip away with the ship. I’m back to Lothal next week.”  
  
“How will I get back, if they take the ship?” Alexsandr asked.  
  
“Zeb’s following us. When they maroon you, he’ll come pick you up,” Rex surprised Kallus.  
  
Alexsandr smiled, “Ah, a nice long flight back alone with him. That’s positively romantic.”  
  
“Happy anniversary to you two,” Rex congratulated, “He asked my advice on what kind of wine to bring. I apologize for it, there wasn’t much to choose from at the fueling station. You’re in store for a treat, though. Candy, toys, dirty limericks about fellatio...”  
  
Kallus blushed charmingly, “He read them to you, did he?”  
  
“Seriously, he made me suggest rhymes for him,” Rex laughed finally.  
  
“You’re a good friend, Rex,” Kallus told him.  
  
Rex wished Kallus’ bigoted parents could meet their son’s choice of partner.  
  
Then he couldn’t help but feel lonely again.  
  
\--

Coruscant, second year of the war

When Rex had asked Lina out on a proper date, he had expected it to consist of some pleasant company. No obligation beyond that.  
  
Allowing himself to do something, anything, beyond his predetermined purpose was so alien to him that he wondered how he was supposed to follow advice and ‘just be himself’.  
  
He truly thought he might find the real Rex trapped in his locker back at the base, while he, an impostor, was out strutting around in THAT armor. He certainly didn’t know what he’d say if he ran into someone he knew.  
  
Lina had brought a blanket and they’d gone to an outdoor hologram and sound presentation in the park. Big public space, lots of different beings. They barely stood out.  
  
She’d touched him a bit. Nothing scandalous, pat an arm here, hold a hand there. During the entertainment, she’d held him close, ear against his chest. The suit of armor made it hard for him to feel any sensation, but he did put his arm around her.  
  
She had held her body against him a few times. He knew that was a signal, he wasn’t stupid or dead. But he stood his ground. A brother couldn’t make a first move without a direct order, it went against every bit of programming.  
  
\--  
  
Later that night, they were in a dingy alley across from a bar in ‘Rat Bottom. Rex’s back was against the wall, and he embraced her tightly to shield her.  
  
Rex and Lina stifled laughs nervously.  
  
It was just the two of them in the dark. Still, Rex had the feeling like he was being watched.  
  
Then she pressed her lips to his.  
  
Finally, the first contact of his skin on hers. He was glad it was dark, he knew he was blushing.  
  
She kissed again and this time, her mouth eased his open and their tongues tasted each other’s. He was almost ashamed, he could tell she would know he didn’t know what he was doing. He was unsure of things like how wide open the mouths were supposed to be or how to avoid clacking teeth.  
  
She obviously had experience kissing, though.  
  
The warmth of her mouth on his caused Rex’s entire body to tense in the armor. He put his hand on the back of her head to stroke her hair to indicate his pleasure. But he was disappointed to realize he was still wearing gloves.  
  
His blushing turned to warmth and tension in other parts of his body. Even though he was safe inside the armor, he was embarrassed that she might know anyway.  
  
Then he regretfully released her, stroking her shoulders and put his forehead on hers. “Not here.”  
  
She stayed against him, “My place.”  
  
Good enough for him, as far as orders went. Rex made sure to take off his glove to hold her hand. He let himself be led home.  
  
\--  
Kothlis- Twenty two years later

They entered Bothan space and commed ahead a few places to find docking. Rex had affected his jang-iest accent, just to advertise. They conspicuously walked through the spaceport in their Imperial Navy uniforms. Kallus leading and Rex trailing behind, keeping a servile demeanor.  
  
They rented a room upstairs at the main cantina. Paid cash.  
  
They then walked through the main center, doing a couple of circuits. Then they returned to where they were staying and sat down for a meal on the front patio.  
  
A food service attendant came near and looked closely at Rex. He and Kallus exchanged glances.  
  
“He was looking at you,” Kallus warned.  
  
The attendant was still standing there, watching Rex. As soon as he noticed Rex looking back at him, he turned and walked away.  
  
“You think he suspects who I am?” Rex murmured worriedly. People were out trying to kill him.  
  
“How could he? Your clothes are right, even I wouldn’t recognize you,” Kallus was right. Rex was in a cloth uniform, which was something Captain Rex nearly never did.  
  
Partly reassured, Rex bent over his plate and resumed eating. He wanted people to know WHAT he was, not WHO.  
  
“Are you sure we have to do this?” Kallus asked. “Imperials aren’t popular, this mob could beat me to death. What if someone decided to defend you openly?”  
  
“They won’t,” Rex was certain this would make their characters more believable.  
  
Kallus sighed. Then he reached out, slapped Rex hard across the face, and as heads turned in their direction said loudly, “No favors for you until I’m finished eating, jar-baby!”  
  
Kallus had wanted to draw the line at slapping him in the face, but Rex insisted it would sell the fiction. Kallus did it, but it made him feel terrible.  
  
It made Rex feel terrible, too, but he used his shame and frustration to maintain his act for the rest of the meal.  
  
\--  
  
The next night he and Kallus drank their drinks in the same cantina.  
  
“Sir,” Rex began, staying in character, “I feel a bit funny.”  
  
Kallus had felt it too. The drinks were drugged. They looked at each other and nodded. Someone had noticed them after the little show they’d put on.  
  
The two of them immediately went up to hide in their room at the inn and lock the doors. The stairs were a little dicey, since the drugs were taking effect. They stumbled into the walls and each other a few times, trying to navigate their way up the narrow stairs to the room.  
  
They got through the door panel and fell into their beds, pretending to be asleep already.  
  
The bar attendant came to their room with two droids. As proprietor of the inn, he had the key card.  
  
“How much did you give him, because that bounty hunter’s paying top credits, but they have to be alive,” the attendant asked the 2-1B that had dispensed their drinks. “This one’s heart might just give out.”  
  
“I gave them the adequate amounts for human heights and weights,” the droid answered.  
  
They put Rex on a floating stretcher. They were trying to leave the room when three figures in hoods arrived and shot every klanker and the attendant dead.  
  
One Jango accented voice pointed with a blaster, “Good thing we got here when we did.”  
  
It was the last thing Rex heard before he succumbed to sleep.  
  
\--  
  
They woke up bound in chairs. Kallus was gagged, with charming locks of hair escaping from the binding.  
  
The space around was a covered hangar, from what they could tell of the sounds around them and how they echoed, the noises of the machines.  
  
Former ISB Agent Kallus groggily registered mental notes as he looked around.  
  
They were surrounded by a tent, obstructing their views of the wider space. The tent contained tools, rope, wire and other sundries. Storage.  
  
Three clones entered the tent. All of them had long hair and tattoos on their faces and arms. Rex noticed they looked like the frozen bodies in the snow of that destroyed prison on Rothana.  
  
“Look at him! He’s an old one, this geezer,” one brother crossed his arms and scrutinized.  
  
“We’d better get him on the serum right away or else he might fall to dust,” another brother joked.  
  
“I don’t want drugs. You drugged us before! At my age, I could have an adverse reaction,” Rex protested for their mercy. Steering his character to fit their assumptions of a scared old man.  
  
“We didn’t drug you, old timer, that was the bartender,” the third brother told them. “We suspect he had a buyer lined up for you. Some bounty hunter was through here saying she was interested in live Fett clones and her buyer had deep pockets.”  
  
One tattooed brother went to his belt kit and drew out an injection pen.  
  
Rex began to cringe and kick. He really didn’t want an adverse reaction. He couldn’t tell them what he was actually taking. Not while he was undercover.  
  
“Just relax,” one of them told him. Two approached and held him down. The other forced the medication on him, sticking it into his neck. Rex fainted.  
  
–  
  
The brothers had untied Rex’s restraints and were watching him sleep on a folded tarp. Rex groggily opened his eyes a crack. One brother monitored his vitals with medical equipment. Another was smoking some kind of dried plant from a small pipe. The third guarded Kallus humorlessly. Doc, Dopey and Grumpy, Rex decided to code name them.  
  
Rex was making sure to take in every detail. So he looked at them to compare their tattoo patterns. Then he realized how clearly he was seeing the fine lines. He suddenly sat up. His eyesight was crystal clear and nothing at all hurt.  
  
“What did you give me?” he asked.  
  
“Regenerative serum,” Doc checked his ears. “You’re in pretty good shape for an old one. Stabilizing. Your heart rate’s improving, good lung function. You have great muscle tone.”  
  
“I...I can see,” Rex was bashful about their terminology for him. But he hadn’t realized how bad his vision had become until all the details came into focus. His hearing, too.  
  
“If you stay on a regular medication program, you’ll be fine,” Doc shrugged.  
  
“How are you feeling, brother?” Dopey, the one with the pipe, asked him.  
  
Rex struggled to keep in mind that he was playing a character. He couldn’t break. What would the character, who was not Rex, say?  
  
“I feel good.”  
  
“So who’s the Imp?” the Grumpy brother asked him, indicating Kallus by means of his handgun.  
  
Kallus was still wearing the uniform of an Imperial captain. They’d kept him gagged and in restraints.  
  
“Do you want to shoot him? We don’t suffer military men who use their rank to abuse people, brother,” the brother with the dope threatened gravely, gesturing with his pipe for emphasis.  
  
Rex winced a little. That had been the script Rex and Kallus had been following. He thought it would get him kidnapped and Kallus sent away. If they wanted revenge, Alexsandr, his friend, was toast.  
  
Rex thought fast, “He’s not really such a bad guy...”  
  
They looked incredulous and Grumpy flicked his weapon’s safety off.  
  
Rex saw Kallus’ eyes were wide. Pleading. He hadn’t asked for any of this.  
  
Rex couldn’t let them hurt him, “To tell you the truth...We just do that for show. So people won’t get suspicious when we go places together...you see…he’s my...my...lover.”  
  
“Yeah, I was just kidding. We had you guys pegged as a couple a parsec away,” the Grumpy one flicked the safety back on and twirled the gun back in the holster.  
  
The Doc held up a hand and Rex gripped it, like the arm wrestling greeting.  
  
Rex was touched, the subtext of the gesture that could be read as, ‘congratulations on the hottie’.  
  
“What are your names, brothers?” the brother with the pipe asked.  
  
“Me? Surf. He’s Charlie,” Rex gave an understated wave.  
  
Grumpy gently untied Kallus and removed his gag, “You alright there, darling?”  
  
Kallus decided to lean into the role, if only just to defend his own virtue, so to speak. He rushed at Rex and kissed him passionately. Open mouthed.  
  
Rex was suddenly conscious of how long it had been since the last time he’d been kissed.  
  
Alexsandr hugged Rex tightly, the way Rex had seen him do with Zeb more times than he could count.  
  
“Thank goodness, I thought they were going to kill me!” Kallus told him convincingly. Because it was true.  
  
Until he could think of something else, Rex and Kallus were now undercover together.  
  
Rex wasn’t sure what to channel to be convincing in return. Then he decided his awkwardness would be appropriate. He and his brothers were always awkward in relationships.  
  
“Charlie, not here,” Rex backed up the embrace a bit, but stroked Alexsandr’s hair. He was wearing fingerless gloves, so he felt it. It surprised him how soft it was.  
  
Rex’s brothers looked as if they found it sweet.


	3. Not to Excess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolffe tries to become a functioning adult for the sake of his new family.

Jedi Temple, Coruscant, Third year of the war  
  
It was Artoo who saw him first and squealed in greeting.  
  
“Commander Wolffe?” Skywalker had happened across him at the Jedi Temple.  
  
Commander Wolffe was in his uniform, but hadn’t shaved that day. He was there presumably for a briefing, but he was nowhere near the conference rooms.  
  
“Oh hey, General!” Commander Wolffe waved. He was smiling awkwardly like he had been caught at something. He was holding the hand of a little girl.  
  
“Rivoche? Are you lost?” Skywalker knelt down to talk to her. He recognized her as the daughter of one of the kitchen staff at the Temple commissary. Most Jedi didn’t know their kitchen staff, never mind their dependents. Anakin did.  
  
“I wanted to take her up to Master Yoda’s class to meet my friend Eli,” Wolffe explained. He was starving and General Plo was busy with a Jedi-only meeting. Wolffe wasn’t allowed to eat in the commissary without a Jedi present. So he was fixing to go up to the nursery classroom at lunch time and casually grab some of the things they had out for the kids.  
  
Skywalker felt reassured. He didn’t want to think ill, but he was wary of adult men who just walked around with little girls. He could read thoughts without people knowing he was doing it. And they often disturbed him.  
  
“Rivoche’s mom is a friend of my brother Gree’s. School vacation this week, the kids are off so her mom had to bring her to work. Gree and I are looking after her, but he had a briefing and I didn’t have any fun toys, so I thought I’d bring her to see Eli, since he’s at least got that stuffed bantha I got him at the zoo, and she’s got the same one, see?”  
  
Wolffe over explained as usual. As if he frequently felt interrogated, so he had to have his story straight down to the last detail even when he was doing nothing wrong. That way, when he was doing something wrong, his obfuscating would seem normal.  
  
Rivoche held up her toy so Skywalker could see it.  
  
Skywalker was amused. “I’ll go with you,” he decided all of a sudden. It would get him out of a boring meeting. He got away with things like that, just not showing up whenever he felt like it.  
  
Artoo squealed and followed.  
  
“What did the droid say?” Rivoche asked Wolffe.  
  
Skywalker smiled, “He wanted you to know I do a really good bantha impression.”  
  
“Really?” Rivoche obviously thought he didn’t look the type.  
  
She looked to Artoo for confirmation. He squealed positively.  
  
“Absolutely,” Skywalker informed her. He patted Artoo’s dome to thank him for the endorsement.  
  
They arrived at the nursery where Master Yoda was supervising their group lunch. He, of course, fit just fine on all the tiny classroom furniture.  
  
“Younglings, younglings, visitors we have,” Yoda called everyone’s attention. Several tiny heads with large eyes trained in their direction.  
  
“Hi, guys,” Skywalker waved at all the younglings.  
  
“Master Skywalker!” they shouted in group cacophany.  
  
They all came running to ask him to do different tricks or ask him about his adventures. A few started to play tag with Artoo.  
  
Yoda came over to greet the visitors, “And who here do we have?”  
  
Wolffe knelt down beside her to meet both General Yoda and the girl at eye level, “Well, this is my friend Rivoche, her mom helps cook the food here. I figured, since you guys are my friends, and she is my friend, that maybe we could all be friends together,” Wolffe sounded younger than the twelve years of age he actually was.  
  
Rivoche hugged her toy and stared at Yoda. His ears were fascinating, the way they wobbled. Master Yoda introduced her to some of the other kids.  
  
Wolffe filled his messenger bag with what he thought would travel well from the food table. He had brought small takeaway containers with him, since Boost and Sinker had brought nothing to eat either. He could bring them stuff.  
  
Then Wolffe found a toy musical keyboard and tried to plunk out a tune he knew. Then he went to go look at some of the shelves to read the books.  
  
He observed Skywalker speaking to Eli and Rivoche about banthas. Somehow he knew all kinds of stories about them. He went into great detail about how bad they smelled, which set the kids laughing. He did his bantha impression. Rivoche confirmed the impression was spot on, she had been to the zoo. So she told Eli about it. The two of them then sat on Skywalker’s lap and he read them a story.  
  
Wolffe watched it all with fascination. He wished he’d had more value to anyone when he was a kid. Then maybe someone would have read to him. Or done something other than hurt him. 

  


Above Rishi, Twenty one years later

Sotna had barely piloted her ship out of orbit when a com came in from Niner’s frequency onto her personal comlink.  
  
“Hey, Captain Chief,” she joked. “How was your first O.E. mission?”  
  
“Um...that’s the thing...mission ain’t over,” Niner was aboard Cody’s backup shuttle, in the hologram, Sotna could clearly see the mural behind him depicting a doashim.  
  
“What do you mean? Did the locals turn hostile?” Lots of foreign missions had gone sideways, but that was just life in the outer reaches if space. “Wait, what are you wearing?” Sotna asked.  
  
Niner was still in Stormtrooper armor, “We encountered a light cruiser full of Imps. Disabled the ship and walked off with six high level hostages. I can’t bring them back home, obviously. So I was wondering what I should do with them.”  
  
“And what do they think you are?” Sotna looked like she was calculating.  
  
“To get them to come with me, I told them we’d been ordered to evacuate them because of a planned assassination. They assumed I was taking them to Coruscant under guard,” Niner had not yet revealed himself to Captain ‘Kicky’, the ranking prisoner.  
  
“I stunned them, put them in binders and threw them in the cargo hold. They’re still shouting orders at me to get them provisions and stuff for their comfort on the trip back to the Core.”  
  
“Okay, here’s what I want you to do,” despite her youth, Sotna was the recognized authority in military matters, as a direct agent of the queen of Abrion’s intelligence service. In wartime, spycraft was critical to their state’s efforts to survive. And in a clone state, wartime was always.  
  
“We are going to flip the script. Reveal yourselves in no uncertain terms to be kidnappers. You can even name our organization. Keep them talking, stall by trading insults until I get there...”  
  
–

“Look, you miserable pieces of filth, the Empire will never negotiate. It only crushes!” the Imperial Captain yelled at the tattooed pirates. He’d trilled the ‘reshes’ on ‘crushes’.  
  
The Rothana clones that made up Niner’s mission crew laughed. Most of them had never seen real Imperials up close. But they had heard of the cliches and impressions. This guy was a walking parody of himself.  
  
Niner, the elder war veteran, looked the ranking Imperial Captain in the eyes, “I’ll give you one chance.”  
  
“Let’s hear it, your terms, brigand!” the Captain ‘Kicky’ commanded, as if he was in charge. He was still in binders.  
  
“What’s my name?” Niner asked him. They’d worked together for months in Niner’s previous life as communications officer on board a dusty Imperial troop transport ship. This man had been a navy lieutenant who bullied Niner by demanding he go by a demeaning nickname.  
  
‘Kicky’ could not remember if he was supposed to know the man before him. He knew what Fett clones looked like, his father had been a naval officer in the war. Like his father before him, the captain had never bothered to treat clones as anything different from their droid servants.  
  
‘Kicky’ did what he always did when he looked foolish. Expressed outrage, “You’re the Dorn-Qek Aurek, admit it? You’re with those pirates we’re hunting.”  
  
“I thought we already did admit it,” Niner shrugged. This guy was thick, he thought, “So, what’s my name?” Niner hadn’t bothered to express any rage. He didn’t need to.  
  
“Name?” ‘Kicky’s ship had been hijacked by clones on the Lahsbane run. The clone in charge had not said his name aside from a silly alias. Anyway this one wasn’t that one, the captain was pretty sure. He thought that one had a full head of hair and face scars. The more he thought about it, the more offended he grew. He couldn’t be expected to remember every jang, deig and jar-baby in the galaxy.  
  
Niner shrugged and turned back to his brothers and continued on, “So we called this one brother Four-Four, since his number ended with that, but also on account of his stutter when he was a kid made him say everything twice. He was 104th, so he had a sense of humor about himself. I remember after Lola Sayu, he showed me a holo-still of himself with Minister Binks.”  
  
The tattooed pirates collectively laughed.  
  
“Anyway, Jar Jar was actually Four-Four’s nickname for a while after then because we thought that brother was also feeble minded, like Binks had been. But there was also that customary joke going around at the time that clone babies didn’t say ‘Ma Ma’, they said ‘Jar Jar’. And Four-Four was the baby of the group. But I guess that joke is funnier if you’ve been drinking.”  
  
The clones roared with laughter and slapped hands heartily. Niner was putting on quite the performance. They, of course, knew Sotna was due any minute. So ‘Chief’ Niner was free to improv his own routine.  
  
Niner had just been telling clone stories to torture the Imps. It made them afraid for some reason when darker humans stood around and talked loudly. So he figured this would absolutely terrorize them.  
  
Then a hail frequency came over the ship’s general com. Everyone could hear her.  
  
“Help me!” an obvious and soft female voice said.  
  
Niner put up his hand in a halting gesture to his men and spoke into his wrist com, “At your service, M’Lady.”  
  
The Rothana guys had had weapons trained on the bound Imperial officers the whole time.  
  
“My ship seems to have run out of fuel, silly thing,” Sotna did not betray a trace of her normal jangy accent. Instead, she was affecting a Ryloth accent. A perfect impression of her own mother. “I just kept saying, one more jump, I’ll make it. But now I’m stuck. Can you help me?”  
  
Niner raised his eyebrows seemingly incredulously, “Why yes, My Lady, I believe we could. Why don’t you pull the ship up and dock with us and my men can check her out and fill her up.”  
  
The younger clones snickered on cue.  
  
“Gee, that’s great. You guys do take credit charge accounts don’t you? I don’t have any money,” Sotna affected a naive persona.  
  
Niner nodded slyly, “Of course, we’ll work something out. Why don’t you come over and have a drink, on the house.”  
  
Sotna responded with what was in the script, struggling not to laugh, “Why is the bar on the roof?” Variation on an old joke.  
  
“Uh,” Niner made a slightly predatory face, “Just dock the ship, I’ll show you.”  
  
“Okay,” Sotna emerged from the airlock and the door slid open. Her outfit was wardrobe right out of a fetish magazine, ink black skin against what looked like a white uniform that had been stripped away in strategic places. She looked at the Imperial captain with her sparkling yellow-orange eyes, “Is everything alright here?” she asked innocently.  
  
“It’s a trap!” Captain ‘Kicky’ yelled at her.  
  
Niner made an unconvincing lunge at Sotna, missing of course, and he stumbled into two Rothana brothers, knocking them over.  
  
Sotna dodged another. He fell past her with momentum into a bunch of Imperials knocking them to the ground. Their bound hands made it hard to get up. Sotna fought off another two clones in a martial arts display. They both fell and lay in place.  
  
Niner yelled on cue, “We need to go, men!”  
  
All clones got up and ran away through the air lock and flew Sotna’s old junk ship back towards Rishi.  
  
Sotna removed each prisoner’s binders in turn according to rank.  
  
The captain affected his handsomest uniform stance and looked the stunning girl in the eyes.  
  
“We owe you a debt of gratitude,” he said in his most romantic Core accent. He took her hand and kissed the back of it.  
  
“And I you, sir. Thank you for the warning,” Sotna gazed at him as if she was appreciative, though she was in more danger than she had been before with the clones present.  
  
She was alone with six enemy officers.  
  
“Might I ask the privilege of knowing your name?” he gazed at her body in the outfit.  
  
Sotna calculated the way her mother had taught her. When trapped in this situation, it would cut down on her worries if she could let him assert dibs. She smiled encouragingly. “I’m Robin Stuff. I was en route to Coruscant to serve as a dormitory house mother for the Imperial Legislative Youth Pilgrimages,” she stroked a lek shyly. Applying for the scholarship through this program had been Cody’s idea. The personality was her own invention, it was something out of a propaganda poster for the Empire or an anchor on the state news.  
  
“Well, let’s get to the communications systems on this ship so we can hail a ride together,” ‘Kicky’, who was unaware of Niner’s sobriquet for him, slathered on what he thought was the charm.  
  
They hailed the Captain’s superior on Coruscant, Oin Kilian, to tell him they needed a pickup. He came with his admiral father’s flagship. Kilian immediately used his superior rank and impressive fire power to brag to ‘Robin’ and reassert the dibs. When Kilian invited her back to his quarters, she insisted she was saving herself for marriage. And she was already arranged. This bought her time, but the men would be back, and in greater numbers.  
  
Though Cody had trained Sotna in spycraft, her mother had taught her the very relevant sociological lessons about defending herself.  
  
As per her mother’s instructions, Sotna went to her quarters and locked the doors.  
  
–  
Coruscant

Wolffe and his ‘boy’ were sitting side by side in the Immigration Office.  
  
Wolffe wore the mantel of an absolutely filthy beggar, figuratively speaking. He smelled a little like every part of the journey there. Every time he moved, he discovered new smells he was emanating. The guards who had sat him in the chair had been too afraid to touch him to be rough about it. He had been given his possessions back, which he had piled on his lap and was clutching them so they wouldn't fall. His guitar case was ruined, but at least the instrument was unharmed. He had put in pieces of pool noodle for cushioning. Player pod was intact, it remained unstolen. Apparently it wasn’t a desirable enough model to confiscate.  
  
Wolffe’s 'son' Den the Stormtrooper sat beside him, still in his full armor and helmet. He was drumming his hands nervously on this cuisses.  
  
The immigration officer in the Imperial uniform sneered down at the forms, “Ben….Drankin?”  
  
Den nodded, “Yep, that’s him. That’s my papa.”  
  
Wolffe’s excellent fake id had apparently popped up on the old Republic databases as a valid person. And there was only one contact person attached.  
  
Back during the war, Den had been a ward of the state living at a boy's home after his mother, a drug addicted prostitute, was deemed unfit to raise him. When she died of a more or less purposeful overdose, Wolffe had met Den when he picked him up at the home and helped him hold a little funeral when he retrieved his mother’s ashes. At the time, the bureaucrat at the boys’ home could only release Den to a family member. So since no father had ever been listed for Den in any record, Wolffe claimed to be the deadbeat in question and presented his flying id. It had been years ago, but when Den had been drafted into the army, the name had been entered into his file from his military background check.  
  
When Wolffe used the same identification to enter Coruscant, the bureaucrats had contacted Den.  
  
Den had automatically spun a tale that his father had disappeared for years and no one had known where, since he was a substance abuser and had problems with mental illness.  
  
Wolffe was able to confirm this to be true, using all the appropriate terminology. Den then said that if they could get his father official identification, that he could take care of him, since the man was clearly unable to take care of himself.  
  
Since Den was stationed on Coruscant and didn't ask for leave time from the army to do it, his superior officer told Immigration that this was the preferable option.  
  
The immigration officer looked at Wolffe as if he thought Wolffe was believable as a person who had lost half their mind and all of their money.  
  
The record of Drankin’s activities was spotty, he seemed to have never been employed formally, only on a freelance basis. That meant he was probably a drug dealer or a pimp. He’d never paid income taxes. The bureaucrat assumed that would be true of useless societal filth, such as the man he was looking at. The old Republic had been stupidly charitable with all the bleeding hearts of the Senate saying it wasn’t these people’s faults they were lazy and unproductive. Or that they bred like rats.  
  
Wolffe smiled his best con man grin across the desk at the bureaucrat, amusing himself thinking of all the stuff he'd gotten up to using that id. It was probably a fun read.  
  
"And where will he stay while he is here? How will he live?" the bureaucrat was going through the questionnaire on the application form for citizen documents. The main criterion for determining whether or not to let relatives through was a bit of risk management. People had to prove they had the money to live before they could enter the Capital to even apply for a visa. But Ben Drankin's citizen identification seemed legitimate. He had a licensed trade. As a citizen, there was not much they could do to stop him from coming in. The bureaucrat was sure neither of these working class types knew that, though, so he decided to put them through all the shit his modest bit of power in his position would allow.  
  
Wolffe and Den both knew he thought that.  
  
"Well," Den's helmet turned to Wolffe a second. Wolffe already had a routine ready.  
  
"I got a lady or two on this planet wouldn't mind me," he said unconvincingly.  
  
The bureaucrat ticked the box and moved on, sure the man would be sleeping in a spaceport station panhandling in less than a week. He’d probably be arrested once he got rabies from a rat he fought over discarded sandwich remains. Or maybe then he’d freeze to death and would be no further drain on the state. That made the officer so happy, he found himself hoping it would come to pass.  
  
He stamped the documents anyway because his ass was covered. The guy had all the required things.  
  
Den paid all appropriate application fees in cash.  
  
Wolffe walked out of the office a free man, in a manner of speaking. Ben Drankin of Coruscant, legitimate citizen of the First Galactic Empire, legal speeder flyer with livery license. A whole new life. The possibilities were endless, as far as Wolffe was concerned. At least until they arrested him for something.  
  
Den mumbled as they walked out the office, “I’ll meet up with you later, when I get a chance.”  
  
Wolffe understood. There were cameras everywhere in the surveillance state.  
  
Den discreetly handed him a com signature on a scrap of paper. Wolffe received it with sleight of hand. He checked the note when he sat to rearrange his stuff to be more portable.  
  
Den waved a hand like he was fanning away smoke, “Get yourself some temporary com units for your interactions. Don’t keep anything more than a few days. They’re always watching,” Den warned. “Ring me, I won’t pick up. Then I’ll tell you somehow where to meet.”  
  
Wolffe hadn’t been looking at Den, therefore any cameras outside the building would think Den was just a Stormtrooper harassing a homeless person, telling him to move along.  
  
Wolffe nodded. He put his laundry sack and messenger bag on his back and clutching his guitar to his chest.  
  
While he smelled horrible enough that he felt people would pay him to go away, Wolffe went straight to the unemployment office and signed up for the dole. The office was crowded and his funk was obtrusive. They were happy to approve his paperwork.  
  
Wolffe walked into the first bodega he saw and bought himself a big bag of provisions to clean and dress himself.  
  
He walked until he found a no star hotel in the Armory District that would accept him. In his room and ran himself a hot bath to get his body temperature back up. He’d been feeling cold since he was back in space.  
  
He lay in the warmth, draining the water in increments only to add more hot. Then he washed and dried, went to the bed and slept until after dark. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had the luxury to sleep as long as he wanted to.  
  
–

  


He had purposefully not looked in the mirror before he let people see him. His instinct was to run and hide, like a very young child who, overcome at the sight of something they love, scream and run away in disbelief.  
  
Coruscant! The bright center to the universe. Even at night, it glowed impossibly. After years on Seelos, in shades of gray, Wolffe had forgotten there were this many colors.  
  
He walked past the Aqualish who was drunk on the stairs, smiling a little involuntarily, like he did when he used to use those psychedelic mushrooms.  
  
The guy bellowed a little. Wolffe assumed he was friendly and saluted, smiling. The guy saluted back.  
  
Wolffe thought the guy liked him, “I’ll see you later my man. Just...” Wolffe pointed at his prosthesis, “Just not with perspective!”  
  
The Aqualish sounded like he was laughing. Wolffe walked out of there feeling pretty cool. He put his player pod headphones in and let it play. He tried not to make eye contact with anyone, because he just wanted to think to himself. But peripherally, he realized he was being watched everywhere. Most of it positive attention. Either amusement or nods of acknowledgment.  
  
He thought the universe must have changed. But maybe it was just the times. People didn’t seem to see him as a clone. Most of them had probably not seen one out of armor in over a decade. He simply was himself and they reacted to him, not to his category.  
  
He went directly to the drug dispensary to legally purchase healing herbs. The prices were higher than he would have liked. But it was easier than having to chat up with people disingenuously. His anxiety wouldn’t allow for that these days. He was willing to pay extra to save himself hassle. They even told him about a new kind of dispensing system that used water vapor instead of smoke, which he thought might be less detrimental to his health. Although, what did he know?  
  
He came out of there feeling like a responsible adult, not like criminal scum. It changed his bearing.  
  
He went to a stand to find some cheap clothing, and bought himself some accessories that suited his taste. Baggy enough to hide things in if he was frisked. He got a cheap wallet to distract thieves and a money pouch for under his clothes. He kept a hood up to make the eye harder to see.  
  
Wolffe then went to go sit and have some herbs and do his best to look uninteresting. Sitting alone in the park was enough to be suspicious behavior.  
  
“You hustlin’?” a voice inquired.  
  
“Can’t a person just sit without being subjected to capitalism?” Wolffe rolled his eyes, which looked ridiculous, since one eye more or less looked solid white. So the organic eye seemed to google separately.  
  
“Nah, everybody’s gotta have something,” the young hustler told him.  
  
“Why? What about the simple pleasure of sitting and having a pipe,” Wolffe offered. “I’m not bartering.”  
  
“Nice words,” the kid lit up. “This is dispensary quality nysillin.”  
  
“Yeah, the government develops the best stuff. The strongest spice too. The spice they refine is ridiculously addictive. They only sell it to the pharmaceutical companies. Back in the day, good old low grade Ryloth ryll spice was all we could get. I was a lot harder to do it to excess….and….ah, you don’t want to hear my ramblings,” Wolffe swatted.  
  
“Nah, it’s really interesting,” the kid drew on the pipe again.  
  
Wolffe looked incredulous, but let it pass, “Does anybody come to the park if they’re not hustling?” Wolffe looked around.  
  
“No. Too dangerous. Police droids can come through and beat us if they want to. Most of us live here,” the kid took a third hit and passed the pipe back.  
  
“You can live here?”  
  
“The government clears us out every so often. We hide for a few weeks in the under levels and then come back. Those that aren’t rounded up and sent to work camps. Most of us just don’t have anywhere else to go. Home was just too bad, or we don’t have homes anymore.”  
  
“Would anybody mind if I come here? I mean, I got a place to be right now, but I’d like to have a place where I could just feel safe to come and sit outdoors,” Wolffe wanted to take advantage of his opportunity to try being retired. He’d always dreamed of it.  
  
“Sure, you’re cool, old man.”  
  
Wolffe almost found it flattering, until he realized how much crap he had gotten used to putting up with. Simply walking while clone was an offense that used to bring him disrespect and harassment from citizens and police droids, so he’d come to expect hostility.  
  
He’d always been cool, what had taken them so long to notice? He did his best to pretend he didn’t see people looking at him. He wasn’t there to do things for them. He was there to have his pipe and keep an eye out. 

  


\--  
  
Wolffe took a stroll and bought temporary com-links at a news kiosk. Three different colors. He intended them for one number each.  
  
Then he got hungry he went and sat at a bench at Bantha Bomb, a hole in the wall snack shack in the Armory District that sold meats on a stick. Wolffe waited for his food at a wonky outside table and dialed the signature code Den had given him, but Den didn’t pick up, as arranged. Wrong number. Wolffe ruined the piece of paper that had the number on it by using it as a grease napkin for his fried starch tuber and the stick meat until it was illegible.  
  
Wolffe put away the first device. His Den com was red.  
  
Wolffe selected a black one and punched in different digits from a number he’d memorized from correspondences.  
  
There was no answer. That worried him. He put it on a mental list to follow up on ASAP.  
  
Next a blue comlink.  
  
He punched in a text message to a signature that he’d memorized back on Seelos. The quote was something that, without context, would be utter nonsense. She’d said to Gregor when he’d complained about wanting to go salvage puffer pig carcasses from a crash site for meat.  
  
‘I’m sure you could get it crispy enough that you wouldn’t notice the grit, but it would still be there.’  
  
A link popped up with an ad for the Outlander Club, a sports bar in the Uscru district Wolffe was familiar with. A nicely lit public place. Wolffe was glad she was cautious. He didn’t want to have to worry about everything. 

  


–

Alis Clara Grady had arrived on Coruscant from Seelos several months before. She, Wolffe and Gregor had paid for her fake id and freight passage with a windfall of cash from one very dead slave trader. When Alis presented her fake id at entry, it was detected.  
  
She was questioned by border patrol and explained the very true story that she was Coruscant born. She had been a ward of the Imperial state, though her parents were possibly living. Neither had had the means to care for her. It was a common story among the urban poor of her generation.  
  
The contact information the government had for her father listed an address in Ziggurat Bottom near the former Jedi Temple. When Immigration sent a transmission, a family member arrived to say the deadbeat in question hadn’t been at that address for a while. But she could vouch for the legitimacy of Alis’ story, as the girl was her granddaughter.  
  
At the Immigration office, Grandmother Marija spoke only Eriadan dialect, pretending not to be able to understand Basic. She spoke at length to Alis, who didn’t remember any of her parents’ mother tongue. She pretended she did so she could ‘translate’ Marija’s testimony to be whatever she wanted it to be. It didn’t take Alis long to realize Marija understood Basic, but she’d be damned if she was going to speak to government authorities. She was a citizen, immigrant or not. She knew she had rights.  
  
Alis had been off world because surrendered children, or those taken from their parents for negligence, were considered burdens on the state. They were required to contribute to the military to pay for their maintenance. The very youngest could not yet be trained for combat, so they were given over to factories making military uniforms and other clothing. Records for those facilities were poorly maintained, people got lost all the time in the system.  
  
Alis told the authorities that at first opportunity she had then made her own way back from her kidnappers for love of Emperor and Empire.  
  
“There’s no place like home!” she’d declared loudly, over and over when she was in the bureaucrat’s office, acting in her character as child-like uneducated baby-woman begging the patriarchy to save her from the big scary universe.  
  
Since she was a young and beautiful white girl, and her patriotism was what the Imperials wanted to believe of her, the bureaucrats were sympathetic.  
  
On Wolffe’s advice, Alis claimed to Immigration that she had never been entered into citizen rolls because her father had refused to acknowledge her. It was just what the Imperial bureaucrats assumed poor people acted like.  
  
Alis didn’t give her proper birthday, claiming she didn’t know it. Wolffe had told her this would cause the database to register her as a new, formerly unregistered offspring of her father, rather than herself. An easy out if she had multiple identities. The less the Empire knew about her really, the better. Therefore, in the unwieldly database of the Imperial system, Alis remained missing, while ‘Grady Child Two’ was alive and well and had duly reported her address to the government. She would be staying at her granny’s house.  
  
Alis was released to the capital on her own with no money, education, or commodifiable skills.  
  
So she’d just been getting by.  
  
–  
  
Alis was standing in her silly hostess uniform at a podium by the entrance of the Oulander’s Club. Bright baby blue leggings. A tank top with rainbow stars on it. Not allowed to show bra straps, impossible to find a bra that fit under the remnants of cloth that the shirt was composed of. Air conditioning vents cranked on high. Alis usually constructed a support system out of tape.  
  
But work was work and she didn’t have the option to be picky. Though she probably would have been safer working in the kitchen, the tips out front were too good.  
  
He walked through the door as if out of an old fashioned holo-vid. For a moment she wasn’t even sure he was really there. Like a person you know but out of context, which prevented recognition from being instant. All cleaned up and in the city, he hardly looked like the man she’d met back on Seelos. Still, there was no mistaking the eye.  
  
“Uncle?” Alis smiled broadly at the realization. She ran straight into his arms. “Uncle it is you! It is you!”  
  
–  
  
Alis’ manager gave her a little break. As long as her ‘Uncle Bob’ was buying something, she could sit with him while it was slow. She had to punch out of course.  
  
Wolffe made sure to show that he was a guy who would spend money, that way the management wouldn’t mind if he came and hung around sometimes.  
  
He looked a little longingly at the cocktails menu. Drinks had always provided a social refuge. If you were drinking, people at least thought you were doing something while hanging around. They didn’t brand you an uncomfortable loiterer or a mentally ill person.  
  
Wolffe wondered why it was more socially acceptable to seem like an unhealthy alcoholic than like a concerned friend who might like to make sure his friend was safe at work. Seemed like acceptability was dictated by corporate interests, if you asked him.  
  
He felt like celebrating and all the drinks looked so exciting. Damned marketing.  
  
Instead, Wolffe ordered a ridiculous fried ice cream dessert because the picture of it was amazing.  
  
He was grateful when he found he needed several glasses of water just to get over all the refined sugar after three bites. Alis ended up eating most of it.  
  
“I’ve been keeping hydrated,” Alis joked. She didn’t want to rush him for explanation.  
  
He gave it anyway.  
  
“Your Uncle Gregor died,” Wolffe said matter of factly.  
  
“NO!” Alis had to cover her mouth with her napkin not to spit. She had been in the middle of a bite.  
  
“So, I thought maybe now I could help you find your mommy,” Wolffe braced himself.  
  
Alis might have no use for him anymore. Just outright asking her to be his family was too needy. He had to tell her why he’d be useful. Transactive relationships were something he understood. He was a corporately produced product after all.  
  
“Really?” Alis’ eyes grew wide. She swallowed hard, “You’ve come all this way to help me?”  
  
“Yeah, why not? What else was I doing?” Wolffe pushed around some of the gratuitous whipped cream on the plate with his spoon. He knew he should come clean. He took a deep breath and admitted it, “I...uh...I left your Uncle Rex.”  
  
Alis didn’t look disappointed, she looked confused, “Why?”  
  
From her point of view, Rex probably still could do no wrong, Wolffe realized. Rex was the one her mommy had loved, not him. So Wolffe told her the truth. From his point of view, “It’s complicated.”  
  
Alis looked him in the eyes. Not with judgment, which surprised him, “Tell me.”  
  
She’d used the imperative, but her gentle tone overwhelmed his heart with willingness.  
  
“Look, the reason I was with Rex was that he was the one person I thought would never abandon me. I’m not the kind of guy who can make it on his own. I need a pack. It wasn’t like either one of us had ever wanted to end up spending our lives together. It was kind of just how it ended up. I always felt like...well I have to stay with him, no one else would ever love me. And Gregor...”  
  
“He needed you,” Alis had tears and she was just letting them fall.  
  
“I’m not saying I didn’t love Gregor, I mean, I thought he and I would just fade away together. But now he’s gone and… Rex and I are just on different paths I guess.”  
  
“Why?” Alis asked.  
  
“Because we want different lives,” Wolffe answered what he thought might be too abruptly. “If I get myself killed, it will be on my own terms, not for some purpose he dictated. So now I take orders from me.”  
  
“Where is he?” she asked. She still loved both her uncles. In her mind, it would be better with everyone together. She hoped she could moderate a peace.  
  
“He’s mixed up in some very dangerous stuff. I would rather not know. That way, if I’m interrogated, I won’t rat him out,” Wolffe framed his strategic ignorance as altruism. He hadn’t said one untrue thing. But he still framed it in a way that made him look heroic. He knew full well Alis might have assumed that he’d given Rex the chance to follow. Wolffe had deliberately hindered that. If Rex wanted to find them, he would have to put in SOME effort at least. That might prove he cared.  
  
Alis wasn’t angry. She was used to people disappearing from her life for reasons she couldn’t control. Having someone care about her was downright flattering.  
  
She scooped off another bite of ice cream. She wiped off the tears with a napkin and smiled, “I just can’t believe you’re here.”  
  
That’s right, Wolffe thought. He was there, Rex was not. Wolffe felt a little more like the person he should be.  
  
–  
  
Alis gave Wolffe directions to her place to meet her the next day and he went back to his hotel.  
  
The next morning the red com chirped first. Wolffe took it out to look and saw he’d been sent a picture of the exterior of Bantha Bomb. So he made his way over on foot, trying to make sure views of him from above were obstructed as much as possible.  
  
The Stormtrooper was waiting for him.  
  
Wolffe liked to think that after all his time spent among identical clone troopers, often in identical armor, he was better than most people at distinguishing those things that made a person recognizable without relying on a face or coloration. He looked at the way the figure stood. The proportions of how the figure filled out the armor. The tentative reaction of recognition upon seeing him. It was his boy, alright.  
  
Den the Stormtrooper did not remove his helmet. It was not allowed outside of barracks.  
  
Wolffe looked around. Den was attracting a little attention. That was not good.  
  
Den responded in a low voice, “Listen, there is a way that won’t look suspicious, but I’m not sure you want to do this.”  
  
Wolffe was up for anything, “Whatever.”  
  
Den produced a set of binders.  
  
Wolffe toyed with the idea of going quietly, but somehow found himself incapable of just doing it. He started shouting, “I ain’t even done nothing! Damn government!” Wolffe had been in binders so often he had positioning preferences.  
  
Den led him away and they took a walk. Not only did nobody think it was strange, people downright averted their eyes when they saw them. Nobody wanted to know anything or be associated, lest they be detained too.  
  
They walked, Den holding Wolffe by the arm, aiming a blaster at him. It was a nice day, so they took a march through the park.  
  
Finally, Den spoke, “You’ve got to help me.”  
  
The statement sounded funny, especially given their respective positions.  
  
Wolffe did his best to sell the helplessness he was supposed to be feeling, by looking terrified, “Can you speak in questions?”  
  
“Huh?” Den asked genuinely.  
  
“Don’t questions sound more like an interrogation?” Wolffe sounded scared as he asked it.  
  
“Aren’t I supposed to be asking the questions?” Den stuck with it.  
  
“What do I know?” Wolffe affected a posture of slight defiance.  
  
“So can you do something for me?” Den poked Wolffe in the ribs with the blaster.  
  
“What do you want?” Wolffe yelped a little in pain.  
  
“Can you help me get out of the army?” Den got to his point.  
  
“If I knew how to do that, would I be in this fine mess?” Wolffe asked genuinely.  
  
“You did it, didn’t you?” Den said, more loudly and threateningly, since it would work if they were overheard.  
  
Wolffe didn’t think his life after the army was enviable, “Are you sure?”  
  
“Why would you think I’m not?” Den asked.  
  
“Then what will you do?” Wolffe squirmed convincingly as a guy who was being carted off.  
  
“Does it matter?”  
  
“Who am I to judge?”  
  
“Can you?”  
  
“I’m your dad, aren’t I?” In actual years, Wolffe’s ‘son’ was older than him. Still, he longed to lean into the role into which he’d been cast. Like by asking Den how the army had been feeding him or something heartwarming like how he had seen dads be on Life Day holo-vids. “Can I have time to think of something?”  
  
“You will, won’t you?”  
  
“Does a Wookiee have fur?”  
  
Den discreetly clicked the binders and they opened.  
  
Wolffe realized that meant the meeting was over. He immediately started running as if he’d slipped the restraints himself.  
  
Den shot off a few stun rounds after him, but of course, being a Stormtrooper, he missed spectacularly.


End file.
